


Splintered AUs

by FriendshipCastle



Category: Naruto
Genre: American High School AU, Astronaut AU, Bike Race AU, Bullying, Candystriping AU, Ch 21 is dark is what I'm saying, Chess (Shogi) Tournament AU, Child Death, Craigslist and Fake Proposal AU, Critique My Dick Pic Au, Curse Seal Chats AU, Dissociation, Finding Yamato AU, Homophobic Language, House of Leaves AU, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Ino Struggles With Her Email AU (kind of a continuation of American High School AU), Ino is The Best AU, Librarian AU, Lumberjack AU, M/M, Mad Max Fury Road AU, Midwest Trucker AU, Mild Gore, Panic Attacks, Pirate AU, Pizza Delivery Boy AU, PornHub and You Gave Away Our Secret AU, Protective of Queer Kids AU, Psych/Brooklyn 99 AU, Scam Cab AU, Tax Collector AU, Trans Character, explicit sexual content described in an academic/detached way, very brief implied rape/reference to an intent to commit rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:53:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 85,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3275687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh man that's a good title.  *pats self on back*</p><p>A bunch of AUs.  All of these are one-shots and most are 'how we met' but some aren't.</p><p>I just want everyone to be safe and happy in another universe if they can't be safe and happy in Narutoverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Got Wood?

Yamato rested the blade of his chainsaw over his shoulder and squinted to read the signs all these ratty teenagers were waving. “What’s the orange sign say?” he asked the guy next to him. “The one the screaming blonde kid with facial tattoos is holding? His handwriting is atrocious.”

“Something about mother earth or some gay shit like that, I bet,” the guy snorted.

Yamato tried not to wince. “Mmm.” Making friends within this particular logging community was not going well for him. He wished he could request a transfer back to his old crew, who had been a nice bunch and extremely open-minded, but they were on the other side of the country now. He was here to stay.

“Tree-hugging bitches, think they know logging law,” the guy next to him was saying. “They don’t know _shit_. We gotta replant all these fuckin’ trees, right? Cut em down, plant em, cut em down. The world would be overrun if we weren’t here!”

“Mmhmm.” Yamato took a casual step away, leaning his chainsaw against the side of one of the logging trucks. The blonde kid with lines tattooed on his face was keeping up a constant stream of impassioned demands for everyone to just hug it out. It was very attention-grabbing.

“Goddamn pansies!” the guy yelled, waving a fist at the mob. They had begun singing something that sounded like a ragged rendition of _Kumbaya_. Yamato took the man’s distraction as an opportunity to escape, walking briskly over to the smoke-break spot behind the port-a-potties that was an open secret. 

The Honeybuckets had been pretty thoroughly sabotaged so all the other loggers were giving them a wide berth. Yamato coughed at the rank air but kept breathing. It took him a moment but soon the smell faded to the background. He listened to the harsh yelling of the lumberjacks and the off-key songs of the eco-geeks. Neither of them were particularly lovely, but at least they were less grating than the sounds chainsaws normally made. Yamato rubbed the bridge of his nose to try and dispel a growing headache. This job was much more depressing than he’d anticipated. Moving across the country had been more depressing, too. He wasn’t handling the change as well as he’d hoped he would.

“Sup?” said someone right beside him.

Yamato flinched. “Holy shit!”

“Oh, sorry,” said the man leaning against one of the port-a-potties. He didn’t sound very sorry at all. In fact, he looked as though he didn’t care about anything, including current fashions. He was wearing a battered pair of shades, the left lens opaque black and the right lens pale purple. A thin scar stretched from his hairline down behind the opaque lens. His battered denim highwaters and jean jacket looked like they’d survived the 70s with plenty of patching but minimal staining. The lower half of his face was covered up by a bandana so it was hard to tell what his expression was, but his lazy posture spoke volumes.

“Are you one of the eco-terrorists?” Yamato asked. He certainly wasn’t on the logging team—Yamato would have noticed someone this… eccentric.

The man cocked his head to the side. “What?”

Yamato jerked a thumb at the crowd behind him. “Whatever they’re calling themselves.”

“I’d say protestors. Eco-terrorists makes them sound too legitimate,” the man said. 

“So you’re _not_ with the protestors?”

“Oh, I am,” he said. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

The man waved his hand lazily through the air, as if he was swatting away Yamato’s questions. “I’m kind of babysitting.”

Yamato blinked at him. “At a protest?”

The man peered over Yamato’s shoulder. “Yeah. I’ve got a few kids who’re my responsibility in there and then the rest are their friends. Here, you can see ‘em from here.” He took Yamato’s shoulder and spun him around, then aimed a finger. 

Yamato wondered nervously if the man had any concept of a personal bubble. He was a few inches taller than Yamato and his grey hair made him look decades older, but the hand he was pointing with was smooth and didn’t shake with age. He could have been in his late twenties like Yamato or really well-preserved in his forties.

“The loud blond one’s mine,” the man said. “Don’t ask why he got the facial tats, my theory is he’s making all his mistakes early. And the girl with the pink mohawk, she’s the brains of the operation. Those two boys who look like they fell out of a gay strip club are mine, too. They didn’t,” he added quickly. “The one in the half-shirt’s an artist, he’s allowed to go through style phases and all that. But Sasuke’s probably exploring some stuff.”

“You have a lot of kids,” was all Yamato could say in response to that. It was weird to talk to someone who was standing right behind him, and who had left his arm casually draped around Yamato’s shoulder. As if they knew each other that well.

The man clapped Yamato on the arm with his free hand. “Told you, I’m babysitting. What’re you doing here?”

“Oh, I’m supposed to be…” Yamato took a step forward and turned to face the man. “Well, I guess you’re protesting against me.”

“Lumberjack, huh?”

Yamato’s felt heat rise in his face. The man’s tone had been gleefully speculative. The one eye Yamato could see was giving him the up-down. Yamato suddenly wished he was wearing ten more layers of clothing and carrying his chainsaw.

“I’m part of the logging team, yes,” he said.

The man cocked his head to the side. “You got a name, Mister Lumberjack?”

The way he said ‘lumberjack’ was _obscene_. It implied all kinds of filthy thoughts. No way Yamato was giving this guy his real name. “Tenzo,” Yamato said.

“Mmm, I’d rather call you Mister Lumberjack,” the man said.

“And you are?” Yamato said coldly.

“Kakashi. _Very_ nice to meet you. Do all lumberjacks wear those delightful suspenders, or is that just for my benefit?”

“I—they’re practical for what we do!” Yamato said.

“They’re quite fetching.”

Yamato was blushing violently now. “You—I don’t—It’s the uniform!”

Kakashi shrugged and craned his neck to keep an eye on the protest. “Do all lumberjacks wear helmets too or is that just you? Cuz I’m seeing some bare heads in that crowd facing off against my students.”

Yamato’s hand flew up to the orange safety helmet he’d forgotten he was wearing. “Oh. I probably have hat-hair.”

“I can check for you,” Kakashi said.

“That’s. It’s fine.” Yamato cleared his throat. “Your students? You teach?”

Kakashi shrugged. “We’ve got kind of a commune school.”

Yamato blinked rapidly. “You’ve got a _what_?”

“I’m a filthy hippie,” Kakashi said. He spread his arms so Yamato could get the full effect. “I supervise a pack of angry, horny teenagers for a few hours every day in exchange for a place to live. I’m using my liberal arts education to its full effect a decade out of undergrad.”

Holy shit, this guy was barely past thirty. “So… Is this a class trip?”

“I really only follow the class around,” Kakashi said with a shrug. “New-wave learning, open classrooms, students as the teachers and all that.”

Yamato peered into Kakashi’s single visible eye. “You just don’t want to have to do real work.”

Kakashi’s eye crinkled happily. “You know me so well already, Tenzo!”

“I—” Yamato coughed. “Well. Um. So, what’s going to happen?”

“Well, I’ll probably ask for your phone number in a second and then you can tell it to me and I’ll ask you to write it on my arm but you’ll notice how strong yet supple my—”

“With the protest!” Yamato yelped. 

“Oh, that,” Kakashi said, sounding infinitely disappointed. “Class ends at three, so I’ll pack them up and you lumberjacks can keep doing what you do.”

Yamato checked his watch. “It’s three oh eight.”

“Really?” Kakashi said. “Well, I’d better get your number quick, then.”

“Uh,” Yamato said.

“We only have one phone on our commune,” Kakashi said. “I’d give you the number but there’s literally no good time to call.” He produced a Sharpie from one of the pockets on his jacket and held it out. There was dirt caked under his nails.

Yamato took it. He uncapped the pen and then made himself ask, “Are you hiding your identity or something? With the mask.”

“That’s the kind of thing you get to find out on the second or third date.” Kakashi rolled up his left sleeve and held out an arm that was lean and wiry, definitely strong and supple. 

Goddammit, Yamato thought to himself. He grabbed Kakashi’s elbow and wrote his number neatly, then added _Yamato_ under it. He slapped the Sharpie into Kakashi’s hand and released his arm.

“Is that your preferred name?” Kakashi said, reading what Yamato had written.

“I gave you a fake name earlier,” Yamato said, because there was no way he was getting out of this situation with any dignity at all.

Kakashi didn’t look offended; he looked delighted. “Really? I’m glad I inspire such trust all of a sudden! I bet it’s the teacher thing. A teacher and a lumberjack, I think I saw that porno… All right, _Tenzo_. You’ll hear from me later.” He flipped a lazy salute. Yamato nodded awkwardly in acknowledgement.

In less time than it took for Yamato to draw a breath, Kakashi was suddenly racing across the field. He looked like a sprinter straight out of the Olympics, practically flying across the packed earth and patchy grass. Yamato’s mouth fell open. The whole hippie uniform, from the fraying edges of his jeans to his flapping patched jacket, suddenly looked like just that: a uniform. A disguise to blend in with a crowd.

Yamato watched him stop right next to the protestors, clap his hands once, and then… It was amazing. The wad of young adults was falling into formation, still yelling at the loggers but definitely drifting into something organized. Yamato saw Kakashi ruffle the blonde kid’s hair affectionately as he walked down the line. The girl with the pink mohawk led everyone towards a big blue van with a dripping green spiral painted on the side and packed everyone in. She got in the shotgun side, Kakashi took the wheel, and apparently the protest was over. Yamato’s fellow loggers were left dazed in the wake of such an efficient shutdown.

Kakashi beeped the horn and waved as he drove past Yamato. The kids in the back stared at him with interest. They were a motley, punkish crew in black leather, tattered fishnet material, and vibrant hair colors. There was even a truly enormous mutt of a dog who had his fur spiked up along the ridge of its spine and keeping with the theme of badass subculture, though Yamato could have sworn he saw a bowl-cut in there somewhere. Then, as one, all these young rebels joined Kakashi in waving at him. The blonde kid with the facial tattoos even yelled, “Hey, hi! Hi!” 

All Yamato could do was give a shy wave back.


	2. Pirate Diversion

Kakashi leaned against the shattered mast of the latest ship he and his crew had conquered. Fires were still burning through the sails that lay across the deck like torn membranes. Blood was sticky underfoot. There were piles of gore and viscera, still gripped in the hands of the people who’d lost these most intimate pieces of themselves. Someone was moaning, high and pained, an animal noise. Kakashi ran a professional eye over the whole scene, checking carefully…

None of the dead had the headbands of his crew. His shoulders relaxed by a slight degree. He refocused on the captain of this ship, who was being held up by Naruto. Her arm was hanging oddly in its socket.

“She’s hurt pretty bad,” Naruto said nervously. Despite the cool breeze blowing across the water, the captain was sweating like she was about to pass out, her breath harsh and panting. 

“Mm,” Kakashi said. “Sakura can probably help out here if she feels like it. Want to go ask her?”

“Yeah, okay,” Naruto said. He looked around the death-spattered deck. “Uh.”

“Just sit her down wherever,” Kakashi said.

“It’s kinda gross,” Naruto said doubtfully.

Kakashi slid down the mast and sat cross-legged with his back against the splintered wood. “Not so bad. Go get Sakura.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Naruto said. He lowered the captain very gently. His tongue stuck out of his mouth with concentration.

“We’ve sunk you,” the captain rasped. She was leaning sideways, trying to keep her arm off the deck. Air hissed between her teeth when her hand hit the planks and jostled her.

Naruto looked between her and Kakashi. “Captain?”

“Get Sakura.”

“Right!”

Kakashi watched him bustle off. Then he leaned in a little, projecting a conspiratorial attitude. “I know you _would_ have sunk me. Five more minutes and I’d have been in trouble.”

“We _have_ sunk you,” the captain said. “One good storm and…” She trailed off with a fierce laugh and grin that turned into a grimace of pain. Her good hand scrabbled at the deck in wordless agony.

“Might not want to move that, yeah,” Kakashi said, helpfully indicating her arm. “I have a quick question for you before our fabulous ship’s doctor gets here.”

“You’ll get no information from me, pirate,” the captain snarled.

“Really? I just want to know where the nearest disreputable port is. Preferably one that offers discounts for winners?”

“Fuck off.”

“So rude,” Kakashi said. “It’s almost like you don’t want medical attention. Or enough food and water to make it to land.”

“My whole crew is _dead_ ,” she snarled.

“You’re such a pessimist,” Kakashi said. He looked around. “In my professional opinion—and I’ve done a whole lot of this piracy thing so my opinion counts for a lot—only about a quarter of your crew is dead. My kiddos are enthusiastic and bloodthirsty but, at the end of the day, they’re kiddos. They’re not that good at what they do. Except Sakura, who’s an incredible medic and can probably save a good portion of the people still moaning and groaning here. So. A few decent port recommendations in exchange for your crew and whatever’s left of your ship.”

“No one will let you dock, you’re _pirates_ ,” the captain said.

Kakashi smiled at her. “I can be very persuasive, don’t worry.” He scratched at his eyepatch absently, smiling wider at how her eyes zeroed in on his finger. So she knew him and all those hilarious, deadly rumors about his hidden eye.

“…Nearest I can think of is Konoha,” the captain said reluctantly. “But there’s also…”

Kakashi kept an expression of polite, neutral interest on his face but his mind was made up after that first suggestion. He hadn’t been back to Konoha in years. It was an excellent blend of military personnel looking the other way and criminal subtlety. The mayor of the town herself gambled and drank in some of the seediest bars and came out poorer but no worse for wear. It was an ideal city of precarious peace where a pirate could conduct his business as long as he wasn’t too obvious about being a pirate. Plus, Kakashi knew people there so he wouldn’t have to worry about finding a safe inn. No reason for this captain to know Konoha would be his next stop, though. Knowledge was power and Kakashi preferred to keep as much of it to himself as possible. 

He hauled himself to his feet after she stopped listing ports. “Thank you for that, Captain. Medical attention now?”

She pressed her lips together tightly but didn’t beg. He nodded approvingly at her stubborn courage and waved Sakura over from where she was lurking, her medical bag overflowing with its terrifying saws and scalpels and the less-terrifying bandages.

“Yes, Captain?” Sakura said.

“Patch up who you can,” he said. “You have half an hour. We’re leaving them with supplies and then we’re heading out.”

Both Kakashi and Sakura automatically looked to their own ship, the _Shadowclone_ (Naruto’s names for things stuck with disappointing frequency). It was punched full of holes, all of them thankfully above the waterline. Kakashi could see his crew rushing around, cleaning up the minor messes because dealing with the _major_ messes was too far beyond their abilities. Fires were put out, sails were already being taken down to be patched, and Naruto had relieved Kiba’s dog Akameru of ‘sitting on Sasuke to calm him down’ duty. He was telling Sasuke some story or other, his bright yellow head tipped back to the sky. Sasuke was lying there face down, unmoving under Naruto’s deceptively dense weight. Someone had kicked his sword out of his reach. They just had to wait for him to come down off his creepy battle high and they’d be ready to set sail.

“We’ll be fine, Captain,” Sakura said quietly.

“ ‘Course we will!” he said cheerily, and took a running leap at one of the ratlines they’d used to swing across and board the ship. He landed lightly on the deck of the _Shadowclone_ and made a beeline for Sai, ruffling Naruto’s hair as he passed him.

“…eat for days. Hi Captain!”

“Good work, Naruto,” Kakashi said. “Keep him calm.”

“I hate all of you,” Sasuke said into the rough boards.

“Nahhh,” Naruto said. “So anyway, like I was saying, I’m gonna write to Iruka and he’d probably like it if you came too…”

Kakashi smiled as Sasuke started up a low stream of curses. He was the best fighter on the ship but _such_ an asshole. Everyone else on board was sick of him standing around glaring at everything when he didn’t have someone’s head to cut off with his cutlass. Naruto’s influence was wearing him down into something human, though, and Sakura ruled with an iron fist as second mate, so Sasuke wouldn’t get out of line any time soon.

“Sai,” Kakashi called, “I need you to disguise the _Shadowclone_ so we can get her into port without getting arrested. And so a ship builder can fix her up without noticing we’re, you know, pirates.”

“Yes, Captain,” Sai said, a smile lighting up his face. “I’ll get on it immediately.” He rushed off for his paint. Kakashi idly wondered how he stayed so pale when he never wore more than trousers and an open vest on deck, then put it out of his mind as one of the many eccentricities of his motley crew. He moved to take the wheel from Shikamaru.

“Sakura’s back!” Naruto yelled.

“Prepare to cast off,” Kakashi murmured to Shikamaru.

“Yeah,” Shikamaru yawned. “I’ll get ‘em moving.”

Kakashi itched under his mask, feeling the sweat beneath his lower lip. He took pains to appear ridiculously conspicuous by sea so he could go around on land without being recognized, but when the sun beat down like this he often wondered if he took paranoia too far. No reason to stop doing something that had worked for years, though. Kakashi waved Shikamaru back up to help plan the best route they could take so the captain wouldn’t realize he’d taken her suggestion to head to Konoha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“He’s got a metal plate around his face and never gives out the same name twice but he’s _good_ ,” said the fourth man Kakashi had stopped to ask about shipwrights.

“Oh yeah?” Kakashi said. He’d been hearing this story all morning but he dragged up as much suspicious curiosity as he could muster. “He sounds shifty.”

The man shrugged. “Hey, everyone’s got a past. Maybe he just doesn’t want his catching up with him. He’s the best at what he does, it’s good enough for most captains.” He turned away, readjusting the scrap of fabric across his nose.

“Where’d you say he worked?” Kakashi asked. 

The guy laughed and held out a hand. Kakashi dropped a few coppers in it and was rewarded with a scribbled map on a scrap of spare paper. 

Sakura snagged it from his hand and looked it over. “I can have them bring the ship around.”

“Good,” Kakashi said.

“You’re sure you can convince him to take the job?” She handed him back the map.

Kakashi shrugged. “I have to. We need her fixed.” As Sakura turned to head back to the _Shadowclone_ , he caught hold of her sash and held her back for a moment. “Is Sasuke with Naruto?”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “Of course he is. Naruto won’t let him out of his sight. They’re visiting Iruka right now.”

“I doubt Iruka appreciates that.”

“He’s too nice to ever say anything and you know it. It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, you’re usually right.” Kakashi let her go. She smiled at him and jogged off, her pink hair swinging behind her.

The mysterious shipwright’s location was on the very edge of Konoha, almost in the forest that gave name to the Village Hidden in the Leaves. It was far from the usual ports, well outside the trafficked areas. Not an ideal location for someone to get new business, but it would be ideal for their purposes. 

The warehouse on the edge of the water was tiny. It looked more like a farmhouse than a place to repair ships. It would probably fit the _Shadowclone_ fine, though. Kakashi wondered how many workers could fit into the space at one time. He walked around by the water, where the warehouse was open to the sea. There were rails that would guide the ship in to be worked on. Kakashi followed them into the space, which didn’t seem any bigger on the inside. 

“Hello?” he called.

A head poked out from a side door. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“Customer,” Kakashi said, aiming a thumb at himself. “You the famous shipwright of a thousand names?”

The man walked the rest of the way out and Kakashi suddenly really wished he was still wearing his mask to hide his face because the guy had no shirt on and _holy shit he was ripped_. Stocky with muscle, shoulders dusted with wood shavings, the aforementioned metal plate framing a face with big, wide, dark eyes that were probably picking up on how Kakashi was about to start drooling. 

Being stuck on a ship full of crappy teenagers, with only romance novels to comfort himself, was probably starting to take a toll on Kakashi’s mind if this was how he started thinking about the first person he’d seen without a shirt outside of his crew. Crew didn’t draw his attention because 1) they were kids and 2) they were _his_ kids, a job and a responsibility rather than a sexy diversion. This guy though, wow. He looked like he could be quite the diversion.

“I got a ship to fix,” Kakashi said.

The man raised an eyebrow. “So I gathered. You can call me Tenzo.”

“I’m Kakashi,” Kakashi said.

Tenzo frowned. “Like the pirate?”

“Yep,” Kakashi said with a wide grin. “I’m older than he is, though, so he’s probably named after me.”

“You don’t look…” Tenzo trailed off, frowning even more deeply.

“Aren’t you sweet,” Kakashi purred. “Mind taking on some work?”

“I’d welcome it,” Tenzo said. “What kind are we looking at?”

“Frigate,” Kakashi said. “About 40, 45 meters fore and aft. Three masts. She’s, ah, rather full of holes.”

Tenzo’s mouth twitched. “You’re aware that, in exchange for not asking any questions, I also ask for a significant amount of money?”

“I figured you would. A man who changes his name a lot knows the value of secrets. To the smallest copper, I’d imagine.”

“And you can pay?”

“Half up front.”

“Two thirds.”

Kakashi blinked at that. Well, winked. The eye behind his eyepatch was always tightly closed. “You know, half up front is the standard.”

“Not for me.”

Kakashi considered. “All right. I can do that.”

“You haven’t shown me your ship yet. I haven’t told you how much it’s going to be.”

Kakashi threw up his hands, annoyed. “I _have_ to pay you because I need the damn thing fixed good and tight. So I’ll find a way to pay you.”

Tenzo actually smiled at that, a quiet smile that was gone before Kakashi could draw a breath. “I see. Very good. When should I expect the ship in my workshop?”

Kakashi glanced behind him, squinting down the coast. “Mmmm, looks like she’ll be here in ten minutes.”

“Wait, what?” Tenzo jogged over, shedding wood shavings, and followed Kakashi’s gaze.

Because Kakashi already knew that his garishly orange ship was now a drab green, that her name was no longer _Shadowclone_ but _Rasengan_ (Naruto's fault again), and that the holes in her hull were splintered and gaping and altogether disgusting, he took the opportunity to give Tenzo a good looking over from a much closer proximity. 

He was kind of a plain man. Nondescript. Solid with muscle but neither particularly wide nor particularly tall. He was a few inches shorter than Kakashi, actually. His eyes were intense. They were watchful and a little eerie, so dark they appeared black. 

Kakashi reached out with two fingers and tapped on the metal plate strapped around Tenzo’s face.

The man flinched. “What?”

“What’s this for? Framing a work of art?”

Tenzo glared. “I got tired of scraping my face against the side of the boat and getting splinters in my cheeks.”

Kakashi grinned. “Did you need help getting them out?”

“No,” Tenzo sighed. “And now I don’t have that problem.”

“So now that you’ve seen her, what’s the damage?” Kakashi said. “You know what it’ll cost?”

“It depends on how strong you want me to remake the hull,” Tenzo said. “If this was a one-time tragedy at sea it’ll be cheaper than if you’re the type to, say, rush in front of canon fire for fun and profit.”

Kakshi felt his grin turn crooked. “Best assume the latter, there, Tenzo.”

Tenzo nodded, clearly unsurprised by that response. “Well. So long as your work doesn’t follow you here.”

“Nahhh,” Kakashi said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of Kakashi’s crew had scattered to the winds the minute he told them they were going to be in port for a week.

“I could get it done quicker,” Tenzo told him quietly as the kids ran off with their allowances in their callused fists. “It’s a hard job but I don’t mind rushing it.”

“Nonsense,” Kakashi said. “You do it nice and slow and right. Take time for leisurely meals. I’ll join you to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”

Tenzo stared at him as if he had no idea what flirting was. Kakashi’s smile grew wider.

“If you’re paying, I’ll join you,” Tenzo said finally.

Kakashi cocked his head. “So it’s a date, then?”

Tenzo turned back to his work. “I suppose it is.”

Kakashi leaned against the wall and watched Tenzo measure and saw, refit and sand, smear tar and pitch. He added layer upon layer of wood to make something that looked nigh indestructible. For wood, anyway. It was a painstaking process, and the effect was fairly comical. Sai’s repaint job had been good but now there were huge blocks where there was no color beyond the tone of the treated wood. Their ship looked like a patchwork mess and seeing her like this made Kakashi’s smile go soft.

“How long have you had her?” Tenzo asked.

It took a moment for Kakashi to remember how to speak. Watching someone work was meditative, soothing, but he hauled himself back to the real world and said, “Years. I inherited her from my father.”

“Really? Who was he?”

The White Fang, pirate captain extraordinaire. “Just a man. Like all fathers are.”

“A man with a ship like this deserves some notice, I’d think,” Tenzo said.

“The attention he got was mostly… negative. He wasn’t well-liked. There was a mutiny.”

“What?” Tenzo stared. “Why?”

“He refused to kill people.” Not even the people who were challenging his authority to the point where Kakashi could see what was about to happen and he’d only been eight years old; a cabin boy, trapped and miserable and seasick because there was no mother on land any more.

Tenzo’s hands rested on the _Shadowclone_ but were still now, pressed against the rough boards. “That’s not worth mutinying over.”

Kakashi shrugged away from the wall. “Enough of his crew disagreed.” He wandered around to the clean side of his ship, away from Tenzo’s sharp eyes. “You don’t want to hear this, it’s not a nice story.”

“I’m sorry,” Tenzo said. He followed Kakashi, surprisingly. “I can’t imagine what… I mean, I never had a family so of course I don’t know what that’s like. But I’m sorry for your loss.”

Kakashi wrapped a hand over his own mouth, feeling far too exposed. “Well. It’s done, more than twenty years gone, and I doubt you were out of diapers when it happened.”

Tenzo’s eyebrows rose. “How old do you think I am?”

“Twenty-three.”

Tenzo’s eyebrows lowered. “Oh. You’re close. Twenty-four.”

“I’m good at reading people.”

“How old are you?”

“Close to thirty. Grey hair runs in the family.” Kakashi tugged at his wild mop of hair, which he’d pulled into a ponytail for his on-shore persona. His hair was fighting hard to escape the scrap of leather he’d tied it with. “There were extenuating circumstances when I was eight but it would’ve happened anyway before I made it out of my teens.”

“It’s a sign you’ve lived your life,” Tenzo said.

Kakashi turned to stare at him. “What a sappy load of shit.” He couldn’t keep the wondering tone out of his voice. The man had _actually said that_ to him. He could feel his lips curling up in amazement as Tenzo’s ears turned pink.

“I didn’t—I’m sorry if I offended—”

“You are _precious_ ,” Kakashi said.

Tenzo’s whole face flamed red. “That’s—Excuse me, I’m going back to work.”

Kakashi watched him leave, pleased that he’d learned the greatest secret to flustering people—being honest with them. It also got him punched a lot, and laid sometimes, but at the end of the day Kakashi had embarrassed a great number of people and that’s all that mattered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rin found him on the fifth day. The sun was setting, turning the entire hill behind Tenzo’s workshop a rich gold, and Rin looked like she could set him on fire in a second as she stomped down the path.

“I’m going to fucking keelhaul Naruto,” Kakashi said to himself when he spotted her.

“What?” Tenzo said, poking his head out from where he was sanding new railings on the upper deck of the _Shadowclone_. He was covered in wood dust. He even had to brush it out of his eyelashes. Kakashi tried not to stare but probably failed. What was he mad about again?

“Kakashi, you absolute asshat,” Rin yelled. She picked up the pace until she was practically sprinting at him. Kakashi straightened up from the wall he’d been leaning against and braced himself. When she hit him at chest height he didn’t fall over, but he had to stumble back a few steps.

“Hey, Rin,” he said into her hair. She smelled like too much soap and like apples and a little bit like home.

She only hugged him for a second before she pulled away to glare. “I have to find out from your damn crew that you’re in town and shacking up with the best shipwright Konoha has to offer?”

“Shacking up?” said Tenzo.

“I wanted a vacation week of leisurely debauchery,” Kakashi said. “I didn’t want a threesome.”

“I’m _repairing your ship_ ,” Tenzo said, sounding thoroughly horrified.

“I’d only get in the way,” Rin sniffed. 

“Just finishing it for you now,” Tenzo said. The rough scrape of sandpaper started up. There was an edge of frenzied desperation to the grating sound.

“I missed you,” Rin said softly, letting Tenzo’s work cover up her words.

“Yeah,” Kakashi said. “I thought you would.”

“Asshat,” she said louder, and punched him in the shoulder. But she smiled as she did it. The old tattoos that were the mark of her family folded away from her small mouth.

“Missed you too,” Kakashi said.

“Not enough to tell me where you were!”

“This is supposed to be a quick visit.”

Rin huffed at him, exasperated. “You could still come say hi! Where are you staying? With stick-up-his-ass?” She jerked her head towards the _Shadowclone_. If Tenzo heard her, there was no sign; the sandpaper scraped on.

The seduction had been fun but without even some hand-holding. A single attempt at footsie during one of their shared meals had been shut down by Tenzo reflexively kicking Kakashi hard in the knee and then apologizing for ten minutes straight. So, “I’m bumming off of Iruka,” Kakashi had to admit.

Rin actually laughed at him for that. She had an awful laugh, rough and wheezy. “Where are you sleeping, the _floor_?”

“Yes,” Kakashi sighed. “Naruto has his own room. The rest of the crew is running rampant, I’d imagine.”

“Coulda stayed with me but that ship has sailed,” Rin said. “It sailed the minute you landed in port and decided to keep yourself to yourself. Asshat.”

Kakashi nodded ruefully. “Take me to dinner?”

She smirked. “Yeah, all right.” She reached up and tapped two fingers against his cheekbone. “You look so weird without the mask.”

“I feel weird without it.”

Rin linked her arm with his and started walking. “Come on. You can tell me all your latest battles and—”

“Bye, Tenzo!” Kakashi called. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow!”

The sound of sanding ceased long enough for a hand to wave, and then resumed with the same industrious energy.

“You _like_ this one,” Rin said, sounding wickedly amazed.

“I’ve been at sea too long,” Kakashi said. 

Rin snorted. “You always like when they have a little mystery to them.”

“And when they treat me with respect,” Kakashi said. He glanced back to the bright light spilling from Tenzo’s workshop. “I don’t know why they do that…”

“It’s because they never get to know you well enough,” Rin said, and then winced. “Ooo, that sounded rougher than I meant it. Sorry.”

“You aren’t wrong,” Kakashi said quietly.

They walked on in silence for a while. When Rin spoke again, it was about other matters, and they didn’t mention either of their love lives for the rest of the night.

Kakashi managed to get Rin drunk enough that she let him sleep on her guest futon without too much protest. He fell asleep to her snores, lulled by the sounds of his adolescence. He’d hated her night noises when he was nine but over the years he’d spent with her family, they’d become as familiar as his own quiet breaths and slight movements. It had been nearly fifteen years since he’d heard them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last he’d seen of his father, the White Fang, had been a thatch of pale hair bobbing away in an empty boat. And then there had been a week and a half in the brig, and then he’d been dumped on the Konoha docks with one fucked up eye.

Rin had found him. She’d taken him home and he’d lived with her and her family for years, until he got strong enough to get his revenge and get his father’s ship back. _That_ had been a gory night, and a night of deals and fast talking. Over time he’d scrounged up a new crew from some of the kids he’d come across in different ports and that had been it. Piracy with his waifs and strays. Nine adolescents, a dog, and Hatake Kakashi against the world. Some fought (Naruto, Sasuke, Kiba and Akameru, Tenten), some schemed (Sakura, Ino, Shikamaru), some were there for their own reasons (Choji because Shikamaru had signed on, Sai for who the hell knows why), but all of them were his responsibility. He hadn’t lost one of them yet and he wouldn’t if he could help it. Crew was his family now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kakashi showed up the next morning to find his ship whole and fresh and new, an entire day ahead of schedule.

He rested a hand against one of the new patches, seeing the seams and the flawless transition from old to new wood. “She’s perfect,” he said. 

“That she is,” Tenzo agreed. He was tapping absently at the metal on his protective faceplate. The face it framed was expressionless, distant.

“Thanks for your work,” Kakashi said. “There really wasn’t any hurry. But, since you’re free for the rest of the day, maybe we—”

“You normally wear a mask,” Tenzo said. “Correct?”

Kakashi rubbed his nose, silently cursing Rin for her comments last night. “Yeah.”

“I bet it’s intimidating. With the eyepatch.”

“So I’ve heard.” Rumors started about how his covered eye had the power to control your actions. It was just captains and crew members who wanted plausible deniability when he let them live instead of killing everyone; “Kakashi’s eye made me surrender, there was nothing I could do to resist his telepathy.” Utter bullshit, since there wasn’t even an eyeball left in the socket, but it was funny to see who believed and who didn’t.

Tenzo didn’t look like he was in the mood to believe anything Kakashi said. “You’re a pirate,” Yamato said, and it wasn’t a question.

“…Yeah.”

“I assumed, but I wasn’t really thinking about it until yesterday when your… When that woman Rin showed up and… Well.” Tenzo cleared his throat. “I can’t really have pirates hanging around Konoha too long. You’ll get captured for sure.”

“Nahhh,” Kakashi said, heart sinking. “I’m good at what I do.” He smiled at Tenzo but Tenzo wasn’t looking at him. It felt weird to have his features so exposed and yet know that no one was seeing it. Kakashi let his face fade back into neutrality.

“You can go back to doing what you do, then,” Tenzo said. “I’ll take that last third of the payment, since you’re satisfied with my work.”

“Um.” Kakashi tried to peer at Tenzo’s expression but Tenzo was shorter than him and looking away. Kakashi leaned back with a sigh. “Yeah, all right. I’ll go get my kids.”

“A few of them are here already,” Tenzo said. “I had a notice sent around last night, after you left.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“I know. But I did.”

Kakashi shuffled a few steps closer to Tenzo, watching as Tenzo took a small step away from him. He leaned into Tenzo’s space. “I wouldn’t mind a bit more time with you, though.”

“I’m not into threesomes, thank you,” Tenzo said.

Kakashi reared back. “Woah, what? Where did _that_ come from—” His banter with Rin came back to him. “Oh, shit. That was a joke. Rin and I aren’t sex friends, we’re just friend friends. And I’m bad at sharing.”

Tenzo was looking the other way but Kakashi could see that the back of his neck was shading towards red. “That’s not my business.”

“Well, since I’m propositioning you, it kind of is. It can be, I mean.”

“You’re leaving,” Tenzo said. “Right now, preferably. You have crimes to commit on the open seas.”

“You wanna come?” Kakashi said.

Tenzo’s head whipped around and Kakashi had the pleasure of seeing Tenzo completely and utterly floored. “What?”

Kakashi grinned. “Wanna be our own personal shipwright? We could use one for sure, and your work’s the best I’ve seen. And you’re easy on the eye.” He tapped the eye not covered by a patch. 

Tenzo didn’t laugh, but he continued to gape. “I didn’t think you’d. This is kind of out of the blue.”

“I need a shipwright,” Kakashi said, dropping his smile. “If nothing else. I can pay you now and all that business, or you can make way more if you come with. We split profits ten ways now, we can make it stretch to eleven. Everyone has to chip in for repairs but if you’re right there, it all suddenly get easier.”

“So this isn’t to get sex,” Tenzo said, as if he was confirming something.

“It’d be a really, _really_ nice perk but we also seriously need help.”

“I’m… familiar with piracy,” Tenzo said slowly, and _that_ was a story Kakashi needed to hear. “I’m not fond of some brutalities.”

“We’re the nicest pirates you’ll ever meet,” Kakashi said solemnly. “Zero rape, minimal slaughter unless Sasuke has a bad day, and a whole lot of plunder. But we have a good tactical team and an unparalleled sawbones and a lot of enthusiastic fighters, so you’d really just be rounding out our gang. We’ve needed someone like you for years. Watching Naruto hit himself with a hammer was only funny the first forty times, now it’s just sad.”

“It was always sad,” said Sasuke, ducking under the bow of the ship as he walked towards them. “Captain, what exactly are you doing here?”

Teens were emerging from different places on the ship, a few wandered in from Tenzo’s back room, and Kiba and Akameru poked their heads in from around the corner of the building. They were all eyeing Tenzo warily.

“Any objections to me picking up a shipwright?” Kakashi asked. 

Sakura caught his eye and raised her eyebrows. “Picking up, huh?”

“Wellll,” Naruto drawled, banging a fist on one of the patches Tenzo had fixed up on the _Shadowclone_. “It looks like he knows what he’s doing here, yanno. Looks sturdy. And yeah, if it means I can stop breaking fingers over dumb stuff like building.”

“Would he fight?” Sasuke asked.

Kakashi glanced at Tenzo, but Tenzo was looking at all the thoughtful, grimy faces around him. He didn’t look particularly nervous but he did look a little annoyed about how much they were staring.

“I’ll see how I feel that day,” Tenzo said.

“It’d be nice to have an adult we could push around,” Shikamaru said.

“Don’t count on it,” Tenzo said. His big eyes grew even wider and his face took on a hollow, spooky quality, a rictus that made Naruto squeak and Ino gasp.

“He’s scary,” Naruto whispered to no one in particular.

“I say he can come,” Sakura said.

That was the end of discussion as far as Kakashi considered it. No one was going to argue with Sakura, unless Ino was feeling particularly bold. “Well then!” he said, clapping his hands together. “I guess it’s up to our new shipwright if he want to come with us or—”

“Captain, are we gonna have to make some rules about fraternization?” Ino asked with a very wide smile.

Kakashi was smirking before he could remember that he wasn’t wearing his mask. It was a filthy smirk; he could feel how it spread from ear to ear. Kiba and Naruto choked. Tenten muttered, “Jesus Christ.” Ino snickered. Sakura and Shikamaru shared a look of deep mutual sympathy. Sai frowned faintly, then wrote a small note to himself in his notebook. Choji hummed and blushed gently. Sasuke closed his eyes as if the whole discussion was giving him a headache.

Kakashi looked over to find Tenzo giving him a considering look.

“I’ll see how I feel that day,” Tenzo said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All those pirate books I read in elementary/middle/high school were useful for something after all, yaaaay. 
> 
> Tenzo/Yamato was on the not-so-good ship ANBU in his youth and damn if that didn't suck. 
> 
> I picked a mess of morally-questionable or just plain fun kids for this particular group. I wanted Lee to be there because I love him dearly but he’s too forthright and upstanding, he’d never do the piracy thing. Neji isn’t getting on a fucking boat for anyone. Shino’s probably there but everyone forgot about him, poor Shino. And Hinata would die of over-exposure to Naruto if she was there, so no.


	3. it takes a village to get Naruto through high school

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This got out of hand. I don't know. American high school AU no one asked for or wanted. Not even me. But then it got away from me.
> 
> Look, I've been sick and sleep deprived for weeks and I made this. I hope someone laughs at least once. There's barely any shipping. Next thing will be better.

Sasuke vanished from their middle school in eighth grade. Without a note or a comment or even a warning for his after-school tutoring group, which had consisted of Haruno Sakura, the shy genius; Uchiha Sasuke, the troubled genius; Umino Naruto (Uzumaki Naruto pre-adoption), the class clown and the sole reason tests were no longer graded on a curve; and their supervising tutor, Hatake Kakashi, who read his adult novels and kept them from killing each other. 

When Sasuke didn’t show up to school, all the girls took notice. All the boys breathed a sigh of relief except for Naruto, who freaked out and wore Iruka-sensei down enough to look up where Sasuke was in the school’s database (being adopted by a teacher had its perks). Then the blonde idiot tried to hitchhike his way to the strange private boarding school where Sasuke had apparently transferred. He made it disturbingly far thanks to a white-haired trucker grandpa. For an entire week, Iruka was a mess. With the help of some well-trained tracking dogs and a lot of legwork, the cops caught up to them a few hundred miles from the school. They were at a strip club. Naruto was working his way through a plate of hot wings, back to the stage, when the cops burst in.

Shockingly, Naruto was neither molested nor dead at the end of the ordeal. The trucker had been a bizarre guy, but nice, according to Naruto.

“He smoked really smelly cigarettes,” Naruto said in the aftermath. He was being subjected to an interrogation at Iruka and Naruto’s kitchen table, over cocoa and Toll House cookies. “The smoke was so stinky, and it made me feel funny and floaty. It was fun. We just talked about stuff. He liked frogs a lot. Can I get a frog? Oh, and he gave me some magazines, but, uh.” Naruto blushed, kicking at a plain paper bag he’d dropped on the floor.

“Yeah, I’ll take those,” Kakashi said quickly. 

“Oh my god, I’m burning them right now,” Iruka said, and he carried the trucker’s magazines off at arm’s length. Kakashi watched them go with a wistful look. 

The reason that the kids’ tutor Kakashi was in the kitchen that night was because he had also been a part of the search team that had helped find Naruto. He was a high school teacher and part-time middle school tutor who trained tracking dogs out in his weird cabin in the woods. A stoic-looking, hollow-eyed lumberjack of a man had followed Kakashi into Iruka and Naruto’s apartment and stood by the counter silently. His arms stayed crossed and he didn’t eat any cookies or drink any cocoa. Sakura didn’t know who he was but no one else raised an eyebrow at his presence. 

Meanwhile, Sakura was definitely _not_ crying into her hot chocolate over how stupid her friend was. “Why’d you have to go after him? Why didn’t you just _call_ or write a letter or something, Naruto? Jesus Christ.” She hiccuped.

Naruto looked sheepish at that, scrubbing a hand through his greasy blonde hair. “I’m sorry, Sakura. You know I’m not good at writing, though. And, uh.” He darted a look around, then murmured, “I lost Sasuke’s phone number.”

Sakura sniffed and wiped her eyes. “You had his number? He wouldn’t give it to me!”

Naruto shrugged. “I dunno, we’d get together and train for sports. But I don’t know his number anymore, so.”

“You could have called the school and asked to talk to him!”

“I wasn’t thinking!” Naruto yelled. “I just wanted him back!”

At that point he was red-faced and leaking tears and snot without seeming to realize what was happening to his face. Sakura was ready to keep yelling but Iruka wrapped a gentle arm around Naruto’s shoulders and said, “You’re grounded forever, Naruto,” in a much softer voice than Sakura had believed him capable of.

“I know,” Naruto whispered, voice breaking.

“You scared me,” Iruka continued. There was a resigned disappointment in his voice that was truly awful to hear.

Naruto mashed his snotty face into Iruka’s shoulder and whined something that sounded like, “Sorry.”

“Don’t do that to me again,” Iruka said, merciless.

 

 

 

 

Naruto never did run away again. He hung out with the creepy trucker whenever the guy came into town, but he never missed curfew. He never missed another tutoring session with Kakashi either. He made it into the same high school as Sakura and sobbed with relief when he got the letter. 

No one heard from Sasuke.

“I called the school,” Kakashi said abruptly. It was their last meeting as a tutoring group. Summer was about to start and Kakashi had brought each of them a cupcake, though the librarian would probably yell at him if she caught them eating in the library. Naruto ate his in one bite and was already eyeing Sakura’s. She was just picking at hers because all she could think of was how there should be four cupcakes, not three.

“What school?” Sakura said. Her voice was as quiet as it had been during those first weeks of tutoring, when she never looked up from the table and winced whenever Naruto spoke.  
“The one Sasuke’s at,” Kakashi said. “Iruka got me the the number.”

Sakura pushed her cupcake towards Naruto but he wasn’t looking at it anymore. 

“Really?” he said. His eyes were wide with excitement. “Did you talk to him? What did he say?”

“He applied there, got in, and it’s where he wants to be,” Kakashi said.

Naruto’s face didn’t change. “Yeah, but did you talk to him?”

“No,” Kakashi said. “He was busy. The headmaster told me—”

“Woah, what’s a headmaster?” Naruto said. “That sounds badass!”

“Language,” Sakura said. Her voice was louder, thank goodness.

Kakashi scratched at his nose, eyes turned upwards. The reddish-brown one on the left had a neat scar running through it, and how he’d gotten that particular injury changed every time someone asked him how it had happened. “A headmaster’s like a snobby principal. He said Sasuke was busy living up to his full potential and all that. I didn’t stick around to listen to the rest of his spiel. The take-away is that Sasuke’s doing what he wants to do right now. We’re gonna miss him but we’ll be okay and he’ll be okay. And I’ll be teaching the two of you in high school at some point, I’m sure.” Kakashi smiled at them, mismatched eyes crinkling.

He’d tutored all three of them throughout middle school, Sasuke and Sakura because they were advanced and Naruto because he… wasn’t. It was some kind of new ploy to give disadvantaged kids as well as very clever kids a chance at individual attention. It was questionable whether it worked, but their little study group had been where they’d all truly bonded. But now they were missing one.

Naruto pushed Sakura’s cupcake back towards her. “You should finish it,” he said with a long-suffering sigh. 

Sakura breathed in. “Splitsies?” she said.

Naruto’s face lit up. “Yeah!”

Kakashi’s smile widened. “Have a good summer, kiddos. You did good.”

 

 

 

 

The transition from middle school to high school was smoother than Sakura had imagined it would be. Naruto had to wake up early to catch the public bus since Iruka couldn’t drive the two of them to the same school anymore, but somehow Naruto managed to wake up to his alarm every single day. He came to class on time, he did as many sports as they’d let him take with his abysmal grades, and he kept working hard. 

Sakura helped when she could. She was busy more than she’d like to be since taking care of Naruto was a full-time job. There were pre-med classes and volunteer hours at the local clinic, mixed martial arts classes and wight lifting, hours of homework for her honors classes and APs… It spoke to how useful her time in Kakashi’s tutoring sessions had been at building her social courage because she had to start pushing people around. 

Rock Lee was her first convert. Two hours into their freshman year and ran up to her and gasped out, “Will you go out with me, Sakura?”

She eyed his serious expression and architecturally sound bowl cut, the green spandex leotard he was wearing with track pants, the amount of sweat pouring off his red face, and she gave him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, Lee, I’m trying to focus on school work right now. And I don’t know you that well. Thank you, but no.”

He stared at the ground for a moment. “I see. I appreciate your honesty.”

“But hey,” Sakura said, because there had to be a way to make him feel better about this, “I’m starting up a study group after school if you’d like to come to that. In the library, whenever you’re out of class.”

Lee looked up at her with those intense eyebrows and small, fierce grin. “That would be lovely, Sakura! I shall see you there!”

She bullied Lee and Tenten into exercising with Naruto so he wouldn’t be out on the field alone (there was nothing sadder than that bright yellow and orange dot trying to pass soccer balls to himself, or whacking himself in the head with a lacrosse stick, or just running an endless loop around and around the track). She bitched at Shikamaru until he gave in and agreed to study with Naruto before math tests. Sai’s quiet suggestions helped him pass Art class. Though Neji flat-out refused, his cousin Hinata showed up and was a quiet, wide-eyed presence at almost every meeting. Sakura got Choji and Ino to talk him through poems for Literature class. Shino silently offered up his tidy, color-coded notes for every review session. Kiba sat in and drank it all in desperately; his grades were atrocious and his mother was a terror. Naruto squinted and yawned his way through every one of those meetings but damn it, Sakura was going to socialize his ass and get him an education if it killed her and every other kid in their grade. Their study groups become the stuff of legends. Two to five people (they rotated out, except Sakura) yelled at a smelly, sweaty blonde kid who yelled back until something clicked and he started writing himself notes in the nastiest handwriting any teacher had ever suffered through.

“Why do you do this to us?” Shikamaru asked her one day. She was buying him coffee in exchange for waking up an hour before classes started to take Naruto through the properties of waves one more time.

“Naruto needs help,” she said.

“Why do you care?” he asked. “No way that kid wants to go to college. No way Iruka can afford it. And before you say it, there’s no way he’s getting—”

“He’s damn well getting a scholarship,” she growled.

Shikamaru rubbed his face. “He’s not a scholar, Sakura. He’s really, really not.”

“I’m getting him through college.”

“Why?” Shikamaru said. “Why is this your personal crusade? You’re going to be a doctor but I don’t think I’ve heard that kid even mention what he wants to do with his life except be President or be a ninja and neither of those is happening.”

Sakura opened her mouth to answer and found that she didn’t have a good response. They called her coffee order, which bought her a few more seconds of thought.

“We grew up together,” Sakura said finally. “I don’t want to see him end up like that old trucker he hangs out with all the time. He’s not a smart guy but he’s charismatic, you know?”

Shikamaru sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I think if he loses momentum he’s never going to finish high school, let alone get into a college.”

“School isn’t for everyone,” Shikamaru pointed out. “The shop teacher never finished high school and he’s doing fine. He’s in some specialized branch of the National Guard. He’s a volunteer firefighter. I’m pretty sure he lives with Kakashi. That guy’s life is great.”

“Wait, Kakashi has a boyfriend and he’s our shop teacher?” Sakura said.

“I’m pretty sure, yeah.”

The topic veered away from Naruto at that point, for which Sakura was grateful. As much as she hated it, Shikamaru had a point. Trying to keep Naruto’s grades above D-level was a Sisyphean enterprise. If she was honest with herself, she just didn’t want Naruto to get left behind by her and Sasuke. They had come so far together, from when Naruto could barely string four sentences together on the page and Sasuke was inking long poems about death on his arms and Sakura couldn’t look anyone in the eye when they tried to talk to her. They’d all needed each other. Naruto made them mad enough to talk to him, and he learned from both of them. He was aggressively friendly, too, which they’d needed.

Well, Sasuke didn’t need them any more. That was made clear from the first moment he showed up, the first day of junior year, and breezed right past Sakura without turning his head.

“Sasuke? Hey, Sasuke, oh my god,” she said, but even then he didn’t turn. It wasn’t until she grabbed the back of his stupid button-down and _hauled_ that he deigned to look at her. All her weight-lifting was paying off.

His hair was longer but as carefully styled as always. His clothes fit him well, made him look like he was in college instead of high school. He was now taller than Sakura by a few inches when they’d once been the same height. Since she’d yanked his shirt sideways, she could see he’d gotten some kind of tattoo on his shoulder. His eyes were even colder than she remembered.

“Let go of me,” he said.

She let go. She didn’t know him anymore and he clearly didn’t want to know her, so. Fuck that guy.

“Hey, hey, Sakura! I had a weird dream last night, wanna hear about— Wait, is that Sasuke?”

The minute Naruto recognized Sasuke, he screamed like a thirteen-year-old fan girl. Sakura closed her eyes in second-hand embarrassment. 

Naruto didn’t understand the cold shoulder. He bounced around Sasuke like a puppy, talking a mile a minute about everything that had happened in the past three years since Sasuke vanished. Sakura watched them go into the school, Sasuke ignoring Naruto so hard that it made her heart hurt. What a dick.

 

 

 

 

Naruto showed up at school the next day with a bruise on his cheekbone and an expression of devastation. 

“What happened?” Sakura asked. It was obvious, but still.

“Sasuke’s new friend hit me,” Naruto said.

That had not been what Sakura was expecting him to say. “What? I’m sorry, but Sasuke has friends? Are you sure?”

“Yeah!” Naruto wailed. “There’s this white-haired guy and he punched me in the head! I was glad the big ginger guy didn’t get me, though, then it might have actually hurt. Iruka was all like, ‘I’m gonna talk to the principal, this can’t happen on school grounds, blah blah blah,’ yanno. He was focusing on all the boring stuff when _Sasuke made new friends_! And one of ‘em’s his _girlfriend_!”

Sakura choked. “Ino?”

“What? No,” Naruto said, blinking. “She’s a redhead. She’s crazy. She and the white-haired guy fight all the time and then she just zones out and stares at Sasuke. Like how you used to stare at Sasuke.”

Sakura glared to try and hide the fact that she was blushing. “Fuck off, Naruto. Sasuke doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

Naruto shrugged expansively. “I dunno. I think she thinks they’re dating.”

“Sasuke wouldn’t know he was dating someone until they were standing at the altar saying ‘I do,’” Sakura sniffed. “You’re full of shit.”

 

 

 

 

Sasuke did have friends. They were loud and mean, except the large ginger, who didn’t look like he should still be going to high school.

Suigetsu, the white-haired guy who’d hit Naruto, was in Sakura’s history class and slept the entire time, waking up long enough to announce that all he cared about were the war stories. 

Karin, the redhead, wasn’t in any of Sakura’s classes but Ino had Math with her and apparently she drew some worryingly detailed pictures of Sasuke during class.

“She’s been watching him way too much,” Ino said. “She’ll shade his hair like ten times before it’s perfect enough for her. It’s, like, _disturbing_.” Sakura refrained from pointing out the hypocrisy in that statement. She didn’t really have the moral high ground either; she’d been just as obsessed in middle school.

Jugo, the terrifyingly large ginger with a car and an old face, took Literature with Sakura. It was hard to get a read on him, angry one day and silent the next, but if you got him started talking about his pet birds he’d light up. 

None of them seemed like friend material for Sasuke. Of course, this was partially due to the fact that Sasuke was repellant, but even taking the three of them together, they didn’t make a very cohesive group. It was strange to think that they’d entered the school already bonded. No one knew where the other three had come from but Sakura could make a safe bet that they’d come from the same mysterious boarding school as Sasuke. What were they doing here, though? Had it closed down? She made a mental note to ask Iruka where the school had been, and then promptly forgot all about her plans. She had more pressing things to do, like signing up for college visits and registering for college entrance exams and somehow convincing Naruto to do both of those things with her. 

And then it was the last week of their junior year and she still hadn’t spoken to Sasuke beyond that first day. Naruto cheered when Lee brought cupcakes on the last study session before finals. 

Sakura grinned when he passed her one with icing that was the exact shade of pink as her hair. “Nice, Lee. These look great.”

Lee blushed happily. “Thank you, Sakura!”

“I want ten!” Naruto said.

“I want eleven,” Choji countered, grinning widely.

“Augh, no fair,” Naruto whined. “If he gets eleven I want eleven!”

“You get _one_ ,” Sakura growled. “Everyone gets one. You’ve all earned it, too.” She looked around at her classmates and smiled. “Thanks, guys. Doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for next year”—there was a collective groan, loudest of all from Naruto—“but I’m really grateful you all agree to do this.”

Naruto, of course, had no idea that these study sessions were for his benefit. “It’s because you’re so bossy, Sakura!”

“Yeah,” Shikamaru said, yawning. “It really is.”

“Eat your damn cupcakes,” she said sweetly. “Lee worked hard on those.” She wrapped an arm around Lee’s neck and gave him a good-natured shake that made him blush even harder. It was a great end to the year.

 

 

 

 

Sakura made sure to call Naruto’s household when she got her own grades in the mail. “Iruka? What’d he get?”

“Three Cs and four Bs,” Iruka said, sounded utterly delighted. He lowered his voice to add, “I think a lot of them are only that high because the teachers noticed Naruto’s effort, but that still counts for a lot in my book. And in colleges’ books.”

“Definitely,” Sakura agreed. “Give him a high-five from me and tell him I’ll buy the ramen next time we’re out.”

“Sakura, you’re a saint,” Iruka sighed. “I don’t know what Naruto did to deserve you but it must have been something wonderful.”

 

 

 

 

“Sakura, Sakura, Sakura, Sakura,” Naruto chanted as he raced down the hallway towards her.

Sakura tightened the knot in her school-issued headband with a hard yank. “What.”

Naruto skidded to a halt in front of her. “Sakura, Sakura, are we lame?”

Sakura turned to him slowly and looked him up and down. It was the second week into their last year of high school and he was wearing one of his donated shirts, ancient sneakers, and baggy sweatpants with dubious stains. The crystal necklace he never took off was barely poking above his collar. His hair needed some serious trimming. His headband was tied on perfectly, though, and he had a lunchbox and a fully stuffed backpack with him. Iruka was doing his best as a single parent.

“You’re lame,” she said. “I have potential.”

“But Sasuke wouldn’t even look at me even though we’re in the same class finally,” he whined. “I went to say hi cuz I didn’t see him all summer and maybe he’s less of a jerk now but he didn’t even look at me! He’s got those new friends and he just hangs out with them and one of them has a _car_ , Sakura! The ginger guy can drive! Maybe if could drive I’d be cool.”

“No, you wouldn’t be,” Sakura said. She took a deep breath and whipped out a tube of lip gloss to hide how thin her mouth had gotten over Naruto mentioning Sasuke. 

“You think Iruka would teach me to drive?” Naruto said thoughtfully.

“You’d kill yourself,” Sakura said. “He’s not worth the effort.”

“Sakura?” Naruto said. 

His voice was smaller than usual. She paused her lip gloss routine and raised an eyebrow.

“You’ll still be my friend, right?”

Sakura smiled. “Yeah.” She sharpened into a glare and added, “ _Just_ friends, though, got it? I don’t want you pulling that shit you did in middle school, sending me all those ‘do you like me y/n’ notes.”

Naruto grinned at her. “I’ll try not to bug you, Sakura! I promise!” Then he wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her into the air, and spun her around once. She clocked him in the head a few times but he put her down gently, still grinning, and raced down the hall for his class.

“I’ll fuck you up if you try that again!” she roared after him, waving a fist. He laughed and kept running.

“Watch it, girl,” Tenten said as she passed by. “Teachers in the halls.”

“Ah, shit,” Sakura whispered. She looked around guiltily. The only teacher she saw was Kakashi and he had his nose buried in one of those books he was always reading with the brown paper covers tacked on. Like no one knew it was erotic novels under there. She knew Kakashi was just weirdly fixated on porn, and shockingly unashamed for someone who taught high schoolers. Apparently teachers brought Kakashi in for the bio lessons on reproductive health; the rest of the time he taught P.E. and Physics classes (and wasn’t that a strange combination to teach?).

“Get to class, Sakura,” he said mildly. “And no more F-bombs where I can hear them, all right?”

“Sorry, Teacher,” she said.

“I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it but a little discretion in the future, hm? I thought I taught you better.” 

“Yes, I’ll be more careful,” she said. Kakashi flapped a hand at her, amused. Sakura ran for it and barely made it to AP Chemistry in time. She slid into her seat just as the bell rang. Asuma raised his eyebrows at her near-tardiness but didn’t say anything.

Breathing hard from her jog, Sakura used her search for a notebook as a cover for peeking behind her. 

Sasuke was working quietly in the lab area for his free study period (it wasn’t Sakura’s fault she knew his schedule). He had those stupid flame-retardant arm protectors on in addition to the rubber vest and goggles. His face was shuttered off, focused on one of the many private projects he was taking on in an effort to get the most out of his high school experience. With his earbuds in he probably couldn’t hear a thing Asuma was saying. He certainly wasn’t paying attention to Sakura.

Sighing, Sakura faced front and tried to listen to what Asuma's lecture was about. Things hadn’t changed over the summer.

 

 

 

 

Sakura was walking to the now-traditional Naruto Tutoring Session when she heard a soft “Ow” from a side hallway up ahead.

“Doesn’t this school have a dress code?” said someone. His voice was drawling and sarcastic and had a mocking lilt to it that set Sakura’s teeth on edge. It took her a moment to recognize that it was Suigetsu. She picked up the pace.

“I’ve received no comments on my wardrobe choices.” Sakura moved into an all-out sprint when she heard who responded. She knew Sai’s voice. 

Sakura darted around a corner and found Suigetsu sitting on Sai’s chest, pinning Sai’s arms to his sides with his knees. He was bent over Sai’s bare stomach, writing something. Jugo was sitting on Sai’s feet with a mournful expression.

Karin had her arms crossed, hip cocked, and she looked bored. “That’s not clever,” she was saying.

“Get off of him!” Sakura snarled, and swung a foot at Suigetsu’s head.

Jugo blocked her and _shoved_ and she landed on her ass, more pissed off than ever. The big guy hadn’t even moved.

“Who’s this?” Karin said, eyeing Sakura.

Suigetsu shrugged. “Goody two shoes.” He stood up when Sakura did and turned to face her, yanking a skateboard free from the strap-tangled mess where he’d dropped his backpack.

“Sai, get out of here,” Sakura said. She let her own backpack fall from her shoulders and she tossed it to lean against the wall, out of her way.

Sai was still lying on the ground with his legs trapped under Jugo, though he’d propped himself up on his elbows to inspect Suigetsu’s work. “My stomach has a drawing of an ejaculating penis on it,” he said. “It’s not very good. He missed the major veins and it’s unclear if—”

“Sai, fucking _leave_ ,” Sakura snarled. She kicked out at Jugo, forcing him to dodge backwards until he was off Sai’s legs. Sai tucked himself into a ball and somersaulted backwards, away from the fight. He landed on his feet and took off around the corner.

“What a wiener,” Suigetsu said, and he giggled. 

“Oh my god,” Karin said. “You actually think that’s smart. You’re an idiot.”

Sakura watched Jugo stand up. He unfolded like one of those fast-motion videos of a tree growing that they had watched in Biology. His rising seemed inevitable, a fact of nature. His face was leering and strange, an expression she’d never seen before. He scraped his messy hair back with a hand and let out an eerie chuckle.

Sakura balled up her fists and took a solid stance. “You guys are such assholes. Quit fucking with people just because no one will hang out with you.”

“Why? You gonna tell a teacher?” Suigetsu snorted. He was holding his skateboard like it was a weapon. From how dinged up its edges were, maybe he’d used it like one before.

“Oh my god, is she picking a fight?” Karin said. “She’s seriously going to fight you guys?”

“Should I not hit girls now?” Suigetsu said.

“She’s gonna kick your ass up and down the hall,” Karin said dismissively. “Jugo, though…”

“Shut up, bitch!” Suigetsu snapped.

Jugo darted forward suddenly, and Sakura had to leap to the side and duck his wild swing. She heard the squeak of Suigetsu’s trainers and she kept moving, pushing away from the wall and keeping her head low and one arm up to protect it. She felt his skateboard glance off her shoulder blade, numbing down to her fingertips before a lance of pain washed over her. It ripped a gasp out of her but she saved her roar for the counterattack, a punch at Suigetsu’s kidney that landed and sent him to the floor, yelping and writhing around.

Jugo was suddenly in front of her, grabbing for her wrists. She jerked back and kept moving backwards, trying to get down the hall. Sakura remembered Karin just as she felt a foot hook behind her own ankle. She windmilled her arms frantically but still landed on her ass (for the second time in less than three minutes, _ow_ ), and all her training made her bring her feet up to kick out as Jugo came at her. She caught him in the thigh, sending him staggering to one side, but he kept his feet under him and aimed a kick at her ribs. Sakura caught his foot with both hands and hissed as the impact shuddered up her arms.

“Stop,” said someone further up the hall.

Jugo shook her hands off and drew back for another kick.

The hollow-eyed lumberjack guy who’d been in Iruka and Naruto’s kitchen four years ago when Naruto ran away was suddenly hauling Jugo back, keeping him neatly off-balance until he was farther down the hall. “I said stop.”

“Fuck!” Suigetsu yelled, from where he was still curled on the floor. Karin had disappeared.

“Is anyone injured?” the lumberjack said.

“Yeah, I fuckin’ am!” Suigetsu howled. “I think that bitch broke my ribs!”

Sakura pushed herself to her feet. “I did not. Believe me, you’d know if I did.”

“Are you all right?” the lumberjack said, eyes only on Sakura now.

Sakura’s shoulder throbbed where Suigetsu’s skateboard had hit it. “I’m okay.”

The lumberjack released Jugo. “All of you, come with me. Now.”

Sakura winced as she remembered the study group, but the lumberjack was waiting for her to walk ahead of him with the boys, so she picked up her backpack from where it had fallen. As she moved to follow Suigetsu and Jugo, Sai fell into step beside her.

“I’ll speak on your behalf,” he said quietly.

Sakura looked to where he’d pressed a hand over the crude drawing on his stomach. “You gonna wash that off first?”

Sai shrugged. “I don’t know that Mr. Yamato will allow it.”

“What?” the lumberjack said. “No, go ahead, Sai.”

“Thank you,” Sai said, and darted into the men’s room as they passed it.

“What hap— Never mind,” said the lumberjack, who apparently went by Mr. Yamato.

“Suigetsu held him down and drew a dick on his stomach,” Sakura said.

Suigetsu shrugged. “I did do that.”

“He did,” Jugo said quietly.

“This is so juvenile, I don’t want to deal with—” Mr. Yamato sighed. “Okay, never mind, I do want to deal with this. Suigetsu, was it?”

“Yeah?” Suigetsu said.

“Why did you do that to Sai?”

Suigetsu shrugged. “I dunno. Thought it’d be funny. It was.”

“It wasn’t,” Sakura said, hands clenching into fists.

“It wasn’t that funny,” Jugo agreed.

“Shut up, it was funny!” Suigetsu snapped.

“It was incredibly unkind,” Mr. Yamato said. “The principal will agree. We will be speaking to your parents about this.”

Suigetsu barked out a laugh. “Yeah, good luck with that! Got a ouija board?”

Mr. Yamato sighed. “Your legal guardian then.”

“Don’t have one,” Suigetsu said smugly. “I emancipated myself over a year ago. You got nothin’ on me.”

“Apart from coming up with a suitable punishment and having you meet with the school counselor,” Mr. Yamato said mildly. He ushered them through the door to the principal’s office. “After you.”

 

 

 

 

Naruto was waiting for Sakura when she finally left the school. Sai had to stay behind to talk to Mr. Yamato. Suigetsu and Jugo were still getting chewed out by Principal Nohara.

“Sakura!” Naruto cried happily, waving a frantic arm as if she wouldn’t see his bright orange tracksuit. 

“Hey, Naruto,” she said. “How was study group?”

Naruto shrugged. “Eh, it was fine. Lee was all ‘where’s Sakura, is she okay?’ Where were you?”

“Some work came up,” she said. “Did you practice the periodic table?”

“That test isn’t for another three weeks,” Naruto said, falling into step beside her even though her bus stop was in the opposite direction of his.

“The earlier you start the earlier you— Um. Go on without me, all right?” she said. She saw Sasuke standing next to a dented minivan, looking casual as hell but also definitely trapped there. Karin was trying to lean sensually against the van but her expression was more squinting than sultry. Her glasses were hanging from one languid hand, tapping absently against her teeth. She was staring very hard at Sasuke.

“Hey!” Sakura said, speeding up into a sprint. “Karin! You dickbag!”

Karin jerked upright and whipped her glasses on. “What? Oh, you.”

Sakura glanced behind her to make sure Naruto hadn’t followed her. He was standing where she’d left him, twisting his hands in the hem of his jacket, looking anxious and also like he was trying very hard to come up with a plan. She had maybe ten seconds before he decided to face this problem head-on and yelling.

“Don’t you ever fuck with kids at this school like that, got it?” Sakura hissed. “It’s high school. We’re almost done with this shit, don’t go making things harder for anyone than it already is.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Karin snapped.

“You stood by, that’s bad enough,” Sakura said. She rammed a finger into Karin’s shoulder, shoving her back against the van. “Don’t fuck with anyone else.”

Karin swatted her hand aside. “I said I didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t let your stupid crew do anything either,” Sakura said. She couldn’t keep her eyes from sliding to Sasuke at that. She’d been deliberately ignoring him since she came over but now she found he was looking over her shoulder, not at her.

“Hey, hey, Sakura,” she heard Naruto say right behind her. His voice was falsely cheerful. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Sakura said. She stepped back and grabbed Naruto’s elbow. “Come on.”

“Hi Sasuke!” Naruto said. He waved even as Sakura dragged him away.

Sasuke blinked slowly, then deliberately turned his head the other way and gazed out over Karin’s head. 

Naruto wilted.

“Asshole,” Sakura muttered. She gave Naruto a vigorous noogie. “C’mon, you can come home with me and we’ll get Iruka to pick you up after dinner.”

“He’s busy,” Naruto said quietly. 

“He’s never too busy for you,” Sakura said. Naruto smiled a little at that. Sakura tried to think of something else to talk about. “Oh! Naruto, you’re in shop class, right?”

“Yeah?” Naruto said.

“Who’s your teacher?”

Naruto frowned in deep thought. “Uhhhhhh Mister Tomato I think?”

“Yamato?”

“Yeah! How’d you know?”

“I saw him today and Sai mentioned his name. But get this; Shikamaru told me that he’s Kakashi’s boyfriend.”

Naruto’s mouth dropped open. “No way.”

“What do you think?” Sakura said, grinning. “Has Kakashi shown up to class waving porn around and trying to get into his pants?”

Naruto clawed at his own eyes. “I don’t wanna know, I don’t wanna think about it, oh my god.”

Sakura laughed, inwardly very pleased at how well she’d redirected him. He was still staring into space with an expression of horror when the bus to her house pulled up and they got on.

 

 

 

 

Sasuke looked up at Sakura when she rushed into Asuma’s class the next day. Their eyes met for a moment, then he looked away, jaw tense. She didn’t know what that meant.

 

 

 

 

On the day everyone got their pre-midterm grades back, Naruto was curled up in front of Sakura’s locker after the final bell. Sakura watched his shoulders heaving and she winced.

“Hey, Naruto,” she said softly as she squatted down beside him, tucking her skirt under her. She rested a hand on his shoulder and held still as he curled himself, prawn-like, around her ankles. He was normally such a loud boy, but this was something too strong for his normal bawling. He was crying completely silently, with only the occasional twitch to show that he was crying at all.

“Naruto, come on,” she said as her ankles started to cramp up. “You can come over for dinner if you want. I know Iruka’s stuck at school until eight tonight. I can drive you home.”

“I’m a failure,” Naruto whispered. 

Sakura closed her eyes. “No, you aren’t. You are working harder than anyone I know, and—” 

“That’s why I’m a _failure_ ,” Naruto wailed.

Sakura gave up keeping her clothes off the floor and sat down with a thump. “Don’t say that. Sometimes school isn’t easy.”

“You make it look easy,” Naruto said, and he heaved with new tears.

“That’s me,” Sakura said. “You and I are different people. I don’t do the sheer amount of sports you do, I didn’t debate my way off the debate team the way you did, I didn’t convince teachers to give me second or third or _eighth_ chances when I did something wrong that I knew I could fix. You’re not me, Naruto, and you shouldn’t compare yourself to me. You’re doing great all by yourself.”

Naruto wasn’t sobbing anymore, just leaking. One split-knuckled, nail-bitten hand wrapped around hers and they sat there for a while as people stared and walked on. The hallway thinned out, the school emptying for the weekend.

Sakura thought about state colleges and the common app, about how she’d been idly browsing two-bedroom apartments with low enough rent that she could use some of the scholarship money that some colleges had already offered her. If she could just get him in somewhere close, she could cover his rent and keep him focused and help him get a part-time job and make sure he called Iruka every weekend…

“Sakura, Naruto, what’s up?” Kakashi said, peering down at them.

“Got my grades,” Naruto said, his face mashed in the grimy linoleum.

Kakashi met Sakura’s eye. “I see,” he said.

“Gonna be a prostitute,” Naruto said.

Kakashi’s eyebrows shot up. “Good luck with that, kiddo.”

“No, you aren’t,” Sakura said. “Get up, you’ll be fine. We have midterms and more semester to turn this around, and colleges already have your transcript. A lot can happen in five months.”

“You should just give up on me, Sakura,” Naruto said, shoving himself to his feet. “I’m not worth it. Sasuke knows it—it’s why he never talks to me anymore. You should know it too.”

Kakashi looked between Sakura and Naruto for a moment, then glanced down the hall. “All right, Naruto. You need some motivation?”

Naruto helped Sakura up, shoulders still slumped. “Don’t worry about it, Kakashi,” he sighed.

Kakashi stepped closer, turning the three of them into a secretive triangle. “Listen up, what’s your problem class?”

“Uh.” Naruto pulled a crumpled, damp piece of paper out of his pocket and stared at it. “Looks like Physics. But all of them. But mostly Physics.”

“All right,” Kakashi said. “You get an A on the midterm in Physics, I’ll look up Sasuke’s phone number in the school records and give it to you.”

Naruto’s mouth dropped open. “What? Are you… You’re serious?”

“Yes,” Kakashi said. “A solid A on the midterm, no cheating, and you get Sasuke’s new number. You’ll have a way to talk to him away from his shitty new friends. And yes, that was a bad word and I shouldn’t have said it, but fuck it. We have a deal?”

Naruto stuck his hand out and they shook on it. “Deal!”

Sakura bit her lip. “Go get your stuff, Naruto. We’ll catch my bus.”

“Yeah!” Naruto said, punching the air as he ran off.

“Teacher, what are you _thinking_?” Sakura hissed as Naruto turned the corner. “You could get fired! So easily!”

“Yeah, but he’s not getting an A,” Kakashi said with a shrug. “I’m hoping he makes Bs or C-pluses. This is just to give him something to work for. He’s always needed motivation and now he has one.”

“It’s _so_ unethical,” Sakura said.

Kakashi grinned. “Yeah, I know. I gotta go. You two study hard and get good grades, all right?”

“Of course,” Sakura sighed. She narrowed her eyes and added, “Say hi to Mr. Yamato for me.”

Kakashi stuffed his hands into the pockets of his slacks and shrugged casually. “If I see him, sure.”

Sakura watched him wander off, then yelped as Naruto tackle-hugged her.

“What’s your dad making for dinner, Sakura?” Naruto asked. “I hope it’s ramen!”

 

 

 

 

Naruto danced up to Sakura waving his official transcript the week after winter break. He was beaming and singing and being way too obviously The Weird Kid, but she could see the joy and pride on his face.

“Oh my god,” she said, her heart sinking even as she pulled out a smile for him. “You aced your midterm, didn’t you?”

 

 

 

 

Sakura was on her way to pick up Naruto for lunch when Kakashi passed her, slouching his way towards the teacher’s lounge. 

She grabbed his elbow. “Did you do it?”

He sighed. “A deal’s a deal. Naruto is full of surprises. Everything else was Cs but there was that one A.”

“Shit,” Sakura whispered.

“Yeah,” Kakashi agreed. “This whole illicit phone number thing is almost as bad as the plot in my favorite book, but Naruto’s not a half-demon werewolf chick trying to make it on Broadway and Sasuke isn’t a tortured angel prince who’s a Hollywood star but reliant on call-girls.”

Sakura let go of his elbow. “Uh.”

“I think I’m the hawk-eyed, busty madame in this situation,” Kakashi said thoughtfully. “Or I could be the leering, sex-addled stage manager, I forget. I should reread that one.”

Sakura left him to his weird porn daydreams and dodged through her classmates until she finally slid up next to Naruto. He had a hot pink Post-it stuck to the inside of his locker and glanced at it one more time to verify before he hit the green ‘call’ button on his flip phone. 

Sakura maneuvered her head next to Naruto’s, close enough to hear the ringing. She tried not to wrinkle his nose; Naruto had a tendency to not shower after he worked out in the mornings before school. It was pretty obvious and was probably a factor in why no one hung around him much.

The phone rang until it hit voicemail, which was generic and read off the number Naruto had dialed rather than saying Sasuke’s name. Naruto snapped his phone shut without leaving a message.

“It’s a school day,” Sakura said. “Maybe he’s busy or turned his phone off like you’re supposed to when you’re in class.”

“I guess,” Naruto sighed. Then he brightened up. “I’ll call him after school!”

Sakura shook her head at Naruto’s optimism and dragged him off to eat.

 

 

 

 

It had been two weeks and, after Sasuke failed to pick up his phone all twelve times Naruto called him, Sakura thought things were over. Maybe Naruto had finally given up on patching things with Sasuke. Unlikely, because Naruto was stubborn as hell, but Sakura had her quiet hopes.

She ducked into the chemistry lab early to check on her lab results. Asuma was pushing them hard this time, and since this was her final project and she’d managed to give it a medical twist (different chemicals’ effects on the brains of fish), she wanted her results. She was corresponding with the head of the pre-med program at one of her top-choice schools and the woman had expressed an interest in any medical-related experiments she’d performed, so the open project in Chemistry had been a perfect opportunity to showcase her lab skills. It had taken some pleading and arguing for her to get the fish for this project. The school didn’t want to budget for experimental fish. She’d gotten her way with some very careful justifications, though.

Sakura was so fixated on the tank of fish that she didn’t notice Sasuke sleeping on the lab bench until she almost kneed him in the head.

“Shit!” she yelped.

Sasuke twitched and groaned. “Jesus… Goddammit Naruto…”

Sakura’s mouth dropped open. “What? Sasuke?”

“Just hang up,” Sasuke said around a yawn. He tried to turn over and fell off the bench, slapping his palms to the ground quickly before he could smash his face into the tile floor. He looked up at Sakura with confusion. “What?”

“You fell asleep in the lab,” Sakura said. She chewed the insides of her cheeks to keep from smirking. Asking if he was okay was the logical next step but she kept the words inside her mouth and took a step away as he hauled himself to his feet. He was back to not looking her in the eye.

“What’s keeping you up at night?” Sakura asked.

Sasuke’s eyes flashed to her, then away. “None of your business.”

Sakura laughed at that. She watched his ears turn red and his face shut down and she laughed even harder. She kept chuckling as she checked on her fish and Sasuke moved to the back of the room, banging around his Bunsen burners and test tubes and the fume hood. And there was still a smug smile on her face as the bell rang and she took her seat with the rest of class. Seeing Sasuke get humiliated was an amazing start to her day.

It all fell apart when Naruto slid in next to her at the lunch table. “Sakura!” he said, wedging himself in so that she almost elbowed Lee in the ribs.

“Ow, Naruto! Personal space!” Sakura snapped.

“Sakura, I talked to Sasuke last night!”

Everyone at the lunch table stopped talking. When Sakura looked around, she realized that _other_ tables had ceased their conversations to listen in.

“Would you excuse us,” she growled to their table. She grabbed Naruto by the collar and dragged him out into the hall, slamming him against the cafeteria door. “Okay, what?”

“I called Sasuke last night and he finally answered his phone!” Naruto said triumphantly.

“Why did you call him at night?” Sakura asked.

“Well, it was like four in the morning and I know you don’t like me to call you that late when it’s not like a life-threatening emergency cuz you told me that one time that you’d _make_ it a life-threatening emergency if I ever did that again and you were super scary. So I decided to call Sasuke instead and he picked up! And we talked for a long time, I think I fell asleep still on the phone. My phone’s dead today, by the way.”

Sakura stared. “Sasuke talked with you at four in the morning.”

“I mean, I talked,” Naruto said slowly. He seemed to be thinking back to the event. “Uh. I might have been the only one talking for most of that.”

“What did you talk to him about?” Sakura asked.

Naruto’s face went blank. His mouth opened, then shut. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I just kind of. Talked.”

Sakura nodded slowly. “Well. That’s good. Have you talked to him in person?”

Naruto’s shoulders slumped. “…no.”

He had the kicked puppy look on his face and Sakura felt like an asshole now. “Well, I’m glad you’re making progress.”

Naruto smiled a little. “Yeah.”

“Why do you keep trying?” Sakura said. The words had been waiting to come out and she couldn’t stop them anymore.

Naruto looked surprised. “Because we’re friends and I miss him.”

“That simple?”

“Yeah?” Naruto said, brow wrinkling. “Should I have more reasons?”

“I don’t know,” Sakura said. “I guess I just don’t know why he’s worth the effort.”

“Why is anyone worth the effort, Sakura?” Naruto said. “Why am I worth the effort?”

Sakura looked away. “…Yeah, okay, I get it. Let’s go eat.”

Naruto was smiling at her when she turned back to him. He was getting taller than her. He was pretty short for a guy but he did have to look down a few inches to meet her gaze now. 

Sakura was worried he’d say more about Sasuke when they went back to their table but all he talked about were the new frogs that the creepy trucker had brought for him and Iruka had said he could keep. All the ideas he had for names were food related.

 

 

 

 

Sakura slowed down when she spotted Lee in front of her locker. She had to dodge a few people to get a good look at him but that was definitely Rock Lee. He was sweating heavily, a handful of flowers in his fist. As always, his expression was intense and almost impossible to read, but Sakura was halfway to understanding him thanks to context clues before he stepped forward and declared, “Sakura, you are awesome and mighty and smart and beautiful and cool and I would be honored if you would go to prom with me!”

The entire hallway fell silent. Sakura could feel everyone’s eyes on her. Naruto was The Weird Kid, but Lee was still on the list of weird, awkward, dorky kids. Sakura, as she’d told Naruto at the beginning of the year, had potential to be cool. Everyone was waiting on her, the rumor mill poised to grind her high school social status into dust. 

But. This was the boy who had been one of the first to show up for her infamous study groups. He’d never, ever asked her out since that first rejection. She’d never seen him yell at Naruto in anything other than friendship. And she knew he could bake.

Sakura kept her eyes on Lee and gave him a small smile. “Thank you for asking, Lee. I’d be happy to.”

Lee collapsed against her locker, too weak with relief to hold himself up. “You have made me the happiest man in the world, Sakura.”

Sakura gently shoved him out of the way. “I’m glad you feel that way, but we have to get to class. I’ll see you at the meeting tonight?”

“Yes!” Lee punched the air, shedding flower petals. He realized where they were coming from and thrust them out quickly. “These are for you! Because you are beautiful like flowers!”

Sakura took the crumpled bouquet and buried a grin in the mess of wildflowers (Ino had a hand in this, she was sure of it). “Thank you.”

“Shall I escort you to class?” Lee asked.

“No need,” Sakura said. “I appreciate the thought though.”

Lee nodded vigorously. “Until this afternoon, then!”

“Until this afternoon.”

Lee darted off, whooping with unashamed and unrestrained delight. Let the rumor mill spin; Sakura had a prom to plan for. And she was going to have to break this to Naruto.

 

 

 

 

Later that week, Sasuke met Sakura’s eyes in the hallway. He looked tired, the dark circles under his eyes almost as bad as those on the weird foreign exchange student Gaara. She looked away first but she thought he nodded at her in acknowledgement.

“The fuck,” she murmured to herself.

“What?” Neji said.

“Nothing. Sorry, what were you saying my ideal prom dress was?”

“Spring colors,” Neji said with an annoyed sigh. “Ino will be in purple, obviously, so you can’t go that route, but you can go bold. Maybe try something red?”

 

 

 

 

Naruto actually had to run full-tilt into Sakura and Lee’s linked hands for him to ask, “Hey, are you two dating?”

Lee automatically looked at Sakura, a hopeful tilt to his eyebrows.

“Yes,” she said firmly, and tightened her grip on his.

Lee blushed extravagantly.

“Oh,” Naruto said, deflating.

“Why?” Sakura asked. She knew she sounded dangerously defensive. She didn’t want Naruto to try and pull a pity card and ask why he hadn’t gotten to date her when he asked in middle school. 

Naruto surprised her, though, and just clapped Lee on the shoulder, grinned, said, “I was gonna ask if you could help me study tonight, but if you’re busy that’s okay!” and jogged off.

Sakura stared after him. “He’s growing up.”

“Are we busy?” Lee asked her, sounding faintly worried.

“Yes,” Sakura said. “There’s a new movie out I’d like to see, if you feel up for it.”

“I would be delighted!” Lee gasped, clasping her hand in both of his and giving her his most serious tiny smile.

“It’s a biopic about Josephine Baker,” Sakura continued. “How do you feel about watching women give birth?”

Lee’s smile flattened out into solemn thought. “I think it is a noble act but I may have to cover my eyes for parts of it. And I will not be able to eat popcorn. But this sounds most intriguing already.”

Sakura smiled. “I’ll pick you up at seven, then?”

“Yes!” Lee cried happily.

 

 

 

 

Ever since Naruto had called Sasuke, Sakura had been carefully watching for signs of him losing motivation. He wasn’t getting much better at his classes or anything like that, but he did seem to be holding steady. That A on the Physics midterm had helped him out a lot. He was still awful at every academic subject, and enthusiastic but also awful at every sport he tried, but the point was that he wasn’t giving up.

This meant Sakura had to put in extra work to keep him on college radars.

She woke up one night passed out on Iruka’s couch under one of the blankets Naruto crocheted. Iruka had taught him to crochet as a way to channel his ADHD into something constructive. This blanket Sakura knew was orange and green zig-zag patterned and, in daylight, the colors made her nauseous. She was in darkness now, so it didn’t matter. Iruka must have turned the lights off and put them both to bed. They’d been studying for Naruto’s Algebra exam tomorrow—or rather, later today. 

Through the doorway, Sakura could see the green numbers on the microwave. It was 3:24am. She breathed slowly, trying to ease herself back to sleep. There was only the hum of the water filter on the tank that held Naruto’s frogs (currently going by the names Hungry, Mumbles, and Woah). Behind that sound, though, something had woken Sakura up. She turned over and listened.

“…really believe, yanno? She does, but I dunno why. You two were always the geniuses in the group,” Naruto was saying. “ ‘m always the kid who’s in last place and fucking it up. I’m not gonna give up _ever_ , but I dunno. It sucks to be terrible at everything, no matter how hard I try. I don’t think…” She heard Naruto cough gently, sniff a bit, and then his voice was even lower when he said, “I dunno if I can survive without her. ‘m scared I’m gonna disappoint her with college and stuff. It’s, like, super important these days for jobs and all that, and I dunno what else to do once I graduate—if I graduate—but ‘m not a scholar like you guys. She’s carrying me through school and that’s super unfair to her. She didn’t do anything really fun in high school. Well, except now she’s dating Lee. I haven’t dated anybody. Have you?”

He was quiet for a while, then said, “You asleep?” Naruto chuckled after a moment. 

Sakura knew who Naruto was talking to but she kept hoping to hear Iruka’s tired, patient murmur. Instead, she heard Naruto say, “You know, I missed you a whole bunch when you left. Why won’t you talk to me anymore? Is it because I’m lame and you’re a cool kid? Cuz that’s stupid if that’s the reason.”

Sakura turned back over and tried to tune Naruto out. This was far too personal a conversation to be having with someone who’d proven himself again and again to be an absolute tool. Sasuke didn’t deserve this. If Sakura admitted it to herself, burning and with her hands fisted in the yarn of her blanket, she was kind of hurt Naruto hadn’t talked to her about this kind of thing. Maybe he just had to put it out there, though. Sakura was a fixer. She couldn’t leave a problem alone. She’d want to fix this for him, too.

He was fixing it himself, though, in a way. At least he was fixing things with Sasuke.

Sakura fell asleep when Naruto started talking about his frogs’ feeding schedule. She didn’t bring up any of what she’d heard at breakfast the next day or on the bus ride to school. Naruto had made it clear that it wasn’t her business.

Lee called out to her just as she dropped Naruto off at his locker. They’d done their last-minute studying on the bus and he was still mumbling the quadratic equation to himself as he stuffed his books into his crowded, smelly locker.

“Good luck,” Sakura said, smacking him on the back.

“Ow!” he yelped, and then, “Thanks!”

She was about to take Lee’s hand and head to her own locker when she remembered that Naruto would need to borrow her calculator. She turned back in time to see a miracle.

Sasuke had walked up to Naruto and was saying something to him. In public. 

There was a gradual silence that rippled its way out from those two. People were turning to stare. Because Sakura was the kind of girl to gauge other people’s reactions during times of stress or shock, she glanced around at her fellow students. The general consensus was shocked amazement with a smidgeon of distaste (the distaste was directed at Naruto, as it always was). She saw Kakashi tucked in the doorway of his classroom with a smug expression. Farther down the hall, Karin and Suigetsu were gaping openly. Jugo was hanging posters for the Young Birdspotters Club weekend hike so his back was to the scene playing out in the hallway. An intersection of social pariah and the school’s celebrity crush.

Sakura smiled.

Naruto dove at Sasuke and tackled him in a hug that slammed both of them to the floor. There were yells of horror and mirth throughout the student body. Sakura clapped both hands over her mouth. “Oh my god, Naruto.”

Naruto pulled his head out of Sasuke’s chest and somehow met her eyes. His blue eyes crinkled, the tattoos on his cheeks buckled, and he _beamed_. His grin was almost as blinding as the ones Lee sent her. Sakura pulled her hands away from her face to smile back. 

“My boys,” she sighed to herself. She hadn't been able to say that in four years. She'd missed it. 

 

 

 

 

Prom was a massive success, despite the fact that Sakura got sidetracked by strange noises on her way to the bathroom. Lee was an excellent dancer and she needed to reapply her deodorant to keep up with his moves, but then she heard a whole lot of moaning and the possibility for blackmail made her snap the cap back on her purse-sized stick of Secret and take notice.

She scouted for whoever was making out so loudly that it moved through the heating ducts. The sound was coming from the basement. Once she got down into those gloomy concrete tunnels with their pipes and flickering fluorescent lights, she realized it was coming from the woodshop room.

With a dull sinking feeling in her gut, she eased the door open. And then she eased the door shut. While it was irresponsible to leave the students unattended at a dance he’d agreed to chaperone, Sakura couldn’t fault Kakashi for wanting to make out with Mr. Yamato instead. At least they were using a table away from any of the more obviously deadly tools.

Sakura tried to quietly wipe the image of her childhood mentor groping another teacher’s ass shamelessly. Dancing with Lee some more helped. When she went to grab him punch (“I love this song, Sakura, just one more—” “I’ll get it for you. I’m worried you’ll dehydrate if you groove any harder to 'Disturbia.' Be right back.”), she was just in time to witness Naruto laugh into his cup and spill the whole red mess down the front of his ill-fitting tuxedo.

“Aw, crap,” Naruto groaned.

“Hold on,” Sakura sighed, digging in her purse. This had been inevitable; put Naruto in evening-wear and he’d ruin it. Of course she’d planned ahead. She dragged out one of Naruto’s spare shirts and held it out to him. “Get Lee to help you untangle your tie and fold everything up _neatly_ once you’ve washed that out. It's a rental.”

“You look like you have a nosebleed,” Sasuke told him coldly.

Naruto snickered. “You shouldn’t’ve made me laugh so hard then!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Sasuke snapped. “You have stupid standards of humor!”

Naruto walked off laughing even harder, trying to hold the soaked front of his shirt away from his chest.

Sakura sidled closer to Sasuke. “Thanks for talking to him.”

“I don’t know why you’re thanking me.” Sasuke looked over at her, his expression bored. “It was a whim.”

Sakura punched him in the shoulder, hard, but kept smiling. “Glad you two are making up.”

Sasuke nodded, eyes shifting away.

Sakura cocked her head to the side and stepped closer. “Don’t fuck this up, okay?”

“I won’t,” Sasuke said quietly.

“He’d forgive you no matter what,” Sakura sighed. “But you’ve already pissed me off once, so.”

Sasuke nodded down at his shiny black shoes. “It was… a sudden move. Scholarships and foster home transfers and. Well. I didn’t know if I’d ever come back. And it seemed pointless to talk to people who weren’t there.”

Sakura thought about how many people Sasuke had lost for good. Everyone in his family except his older brother, who’d run off the night their parents were killed (and hadn’t that been suspicious). Saying goodbye had to be hard. He probably wasn’t even familiar with the idea. She didn’t want to, but Sakura could feel herself softening to Sasuke’s point of view.

“Why hang out with those assholes, then?” she asked, because she wasn’t _that_ soft.

Sasuke darted a look around. Suigetsu wasn’t here. Imagining him at prom was difficult, so it made sense he’d skip it. Jugo was standing by the wall, eyes closed and hands in his pockets. He seemed to be enjoying the music in silence. Considering the DJ was mediocre at best, this was surprising. Karin…

Karin was leaning the other side of the table, her back to Sasuke and Sakura, talking to a pack of wide-eyed juniors. “Yeah, he’s quiet but he’s nice to me, yanno? You’d think it’d kill the magic because we’re living together but he’s still just _rabid_ in bed.” She took her glasses off with a flair and tapped one of the arms against her wide, toothy grin. “Mmmm yeah, Sasuke is a _perfect_ example of calm on the streets, freak in the sheets.”

“What the fuck,” Sasuke said.

Sakura snorted so hard she might have ripped a hole in her own trachea.

Karin whipped around, slapping her glasses back into place. “Sasuke!”

“What are you telling people?” Sasuke said. “We’re not dating. I’d never have sex with you. Why are you saying we have?”

Karin’s eyes darted everywhere, looking for an escape. “Uh.”

Sakura rubbed her forehead and sighed. “Sasuke, let’s go dance, okay?”

“Stop telling people lies,” Sasuke said as Sakura dragged him away from a furiously red Karin. “There’s a reason I have the room that locks from the inside.”

“Jesus,” Sakura muttered to herself. “Maybe I should start looking at three-bedroom apartments.”

“What?” Sasuke said.

Sakura glanced up at him, considering. “Where’d you get into college?”

Sasuke blinked. “Wherever I want to.”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “Yes, but where do you think you’ll actually _go_ to college?”

“I was considering. Ah. The next town over. They have a firefighter program and, ah, their chemistry department is—”

“That’s where we’re going,” Sakura grinned. “Naruto got their ‘Inspiring Individual’ full-ride scholarship and they have a decent pre-med program. But I imagine you knew about that.”

“…Naruto may have mentioned something in our last phone call.”

Sakura nodded. She grabbed Sasuke’s limp hands and started swinging them in a sad, mocking parody of a dance. “I’ll definitely start looking into three-bedroom apartments.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All because I rewatched an episode wherein Suigetsu slammed a dude up against a chain-link fence and I was like ‘that’s what bullies do. these kids are bullies. in high school.’ And then I wrote this and my friend helped and also made it longer than I ever wanted it to be. There was less Suigetsu than I wanted, too. Love that horrible kid.
> 
> Jiraiya smokes so much weed. Probably his second favorite thing, after porn but before frogs.
> 
> Naruto has tried Every Single Sport and he’s mediocre at all of them but he’s very loud (he should try cheerleading but he’s still an asshole about gender roles). Lee does track and field. Kiba brags that he can do a hundred push-ups but he can’t. Sai is a cross-country runner in tiny shorts and a half shirt and he doesn’t understand why everyone’s drooling by the end of his races. Tenten does lacrosse. Ino wants to take pole dancing classes but her dad won’t let her so she does yoga and takes every opportunity to wear yoga pants cuz she knows she’s hot. Sakura lifts weights and takes a mixed martial arts class with Lee and Neji and Hinata. Leave me alone.
> 
> Jugo drives the minivan for Hebi. They are not a cool squad.
> 
> Ughhhhh someone make a Dr. Josephine Baker biopic, just fukkin do it already. Lesbians and new parent education classes and Typhoid Mary. All the good stuff. 
> 
> Remember 'Disturbia'? That was a damn good song.


	4. Keep on Truckin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trucker AUs are my favorite thing. This is already the second one I've written. Write more trucker AUs, people. Road trips are the best.

Yamato rubbed at his eyes. It was that awkward time of twilight where he almost needed to turn on his headlights but he didn’t want to blind any drivers that might be coming the other way, since it wasn’t _that_ dark. Admittedly, he hadn’t noticed anyone coming from the other direction in the past hour. He was on a particularly lonely stretch of highway now. 

He squinted into the gloom ahead of him. From the radio, The Black Keys crooned “ _Loneliness is over, dark days are through._ ”

“Fuck it,” he sighed to himself, and flicked on the lights.

Somewhere far ahead of him, a person walking along the side of the road spun around and started waving wildly.

“Fuck,” Yamato said again. He straightened the truckstop hat he’d bought to intimidate people (It read ‘Don’t Mess With Texas, We’ll Kick Your Ass’ which he considered to be a decent slant rhyme), lit one of the cigarettes he’d bought to establish quick camaraderie with fellow truckers, and started the long process of slowing down. He turned down the radio to listen to the logs behind him. By all rights they should be strapped down tightly enough that they wouldn’t shift, but it was better to be safe than have a few tons of lumber suddenly smash into the back of the truck cab. 

At least he didn’t have to pull to the side of this road. No one would be coming along behind him. Which, really, was the reason he was pulling over here. Yamato had hitchhiked before. On stretches of road like this he usually had to settle down until morning. Or tighten his shoelaces and walk all night, depending on whether he had a deadline or not. 

When Yamato finally got the truck to stop, parked, turned the radio back up, and popped open the passenger door, he almost immediately regretted it. The man looked like a _robber_. Like an old-style train bandit. It was almost comical. He had a dark-colored strip of cloth wrapped around the lower part of his face and a patch covering his left eye. His hair was grey, but a lot of young adults Yamato’s age were dying their hair that strange silver so it didn’t mean a whole lot. The fact that his movements were smooth and casual indicated he was still young. The man had a battered rolling suitcase with him but the vest he was wearing seemed to have an inordinate number of pockets. He had a ragged Guns N Roses shirt with the sleeves cut off on underneath his vest. 

The man hopped up on the running board and leaned his way into the cab. “Hey, thanks for stopping. Where are you headed?” The truck cab’s bubble light illuminated the many faint freckles on his pale arms, which were thick with the kind of muscle that only hard work could build.

“Albuquerque,” Yamato said. “Well, um. First Albuquerque. Then Oklahoma City.” He flicked the ash that had accumulated on his cigarette out the window.

“Excellent,” the man said, and hauled his suitcase in. “That’s the way I need to go.”

“Oh,” Yamato said. “All right.”

The man paused his efforts to wedge the suitcase under the dashboard and stuck a hand out. “Kakashi.”

Yamato gingerly shook the hand, which was wrapped in some threadbare fingerless gloves. “Tenzo,” he lied. He liked picking new names for strangers to call him. It was maybe a little strange that he found it fun to tell such a quiet little lie, that he would still be a stranger after he stepped out of this person’s life.

“I’m glad you pulled over for me,” Kakashi said. It was strangely easy to see he was smiling behind all the cloth wrapped around his face. His single visible eye was crinkled up and almost glowing, a dark sliver of appreciation.

“No problem,” Yamato said. “It’s a pretty bad time to be trying to hitch a ride.”

Kakashi shrugged. “Well, I have places to be, Tenzo. Can’t be sitting around idle.”

Yamato nodded in lieu of asking what the hell this guy was talking about. He tapped his cigarette out the window again (it was nice to just hold it, he didn’t particularly enjoy the taste). Then he turned on his turn signal even though no one was there to see it and started his truck rolling again.

Kakashi kicked his feet up on the dash. “So, you like hipster music?”

“What?” Yamato said. He tuned into what was playing on the radio. It had switched over to something like Mumford and Sons at some point. “Oh, I don’t know. It was The Black Keys a little bit ago.”

“Hipster music,” Kakashi repeated.

“Maybe,” Yamato said a bit more sharply. “I like anything that twangs.”

“Twang?” Kakashi said.

Yamato was already gripping the steering wheel more tightly than he usually did. “Yes. Banjos and, um, guitars and such.”

“Ah.” Kakashi rolled down his window and stuck a hand out into the hot, dry air. “Yeah, I wish I could play an instrument.”

Privately, Yamato thought he had the fingers for it. For someone who was probably doing a lot of manual labor, Kakashi had surprisingly elegant hands. Long fingers, wide palms. He could probably play more than an octave on the piano with a handspan that wide. It was a weird thing to say, though, so Yamato didn’t say it.

“You can change the station if you want,” Yamato said instead. “I reserve the right to switch it back, but I don’t mind if you want to hear something else.” He let his dead cigarette drop out the window. Kakashi hadn’t commented and that meant he wasn’t a smoker.

“Shotgun does usually get music choice,” Kakashi said, and flicked through the radio waves. Thankfully, he didn’t stop on any of the late-night gospel stations or the talk shows—NPR made Yamato’s head nod—but he chose some quiet station that seemed to only play bands that were inspired by The Beatles. 

Yamato nodded his approval. “This is nice.”

“This is _oldies_ ,” Kakashi said. “How old’re you?” 

“What?” Yamato said.

“Just wondering how old you have to be to get a job like this,” Kakashi said with a shrug.

No one he’d picked up had ever asked him personal questions like this before. “I, uh. I’m twenty-seven.”

“Mm,” Kakashi said, and waggled the hand he’d stuck out the window. “You’re one of the youngest truckers I’ve met out here.”

“Oh,” Yamato said. Then, in an effort to not have to talk about himself anymore, he asked, “So you’ve been hitchhiking around her for a while now?”

“Few years,” Kakashi said. “Not _here_ necessarily, but around the US, yeah.”

“Taking in the sights?” Yamato offered.

“No,” Kakashi said. 

It was impossible to read his face. All Yamato saw when he turned to look at his passenger was the eyepatch, an ear, and a whole lot of pale grey hair. He also had a shitty poke-and-stick on his bicep that looked like a vertical eye, or some sort of faux-tribal spiral tattoo. It could also have been a stylized flame. The tattoo itself was blurry and faded, a black outline with a red-orange tint inside the lines. It looked a little familiar, like a shape Yamato should know, but it also looked old. Maybe the man was in his forties.

“How old are you?” Yamato asked, since this was apparently something that Kakashi thought was okay to ask.

“Thirty-three,” Kakashi said. He yawned behind his mask. “Hey, you gonna try and murder-fuck me if I nap?”

“What?” Yamato yelped. “No! Oh my god! Why would—”

“Cool,” Kakashi said. “Wake me up when you need me to keep you awake.” He crossed his arms over his chest and his breathing evened out suddenly, softening. His head lolled onto his left shoulder. He was absolutely asleep.

“Christ,” Yamato muttered to himself, and turned the radio down a few notches. It reminded him of his own times hitchhiking. He’d nap anywhere that he knew the police wouldn’t hassle him, and that was in cars. It had been tough to transition back to staying awake while in motion when he took this trucking job. If there was one thing Yamato had a lot of, though, it was willpower. 

He also had excellent bladder control. He made it to Albuquerque without stopping. They were about ten minutes from the drop-off point for his first load of lumber when he reached over and tapped Kakashi’s shoulder.

He wasn’t expecting the guy to grab his hand and put him in a painful finger-hold. He kept his free hand on the wheel, though, and took his foot off the accelerator. “Um, could you not break that?”

Yamato’s eyes stayed firmly on the road but he heard Kakashi take a deep, uneven breath, and then Kakashi let him go. “Shit, sorry. I get jumpy when I’m woken up. Sorry.”

Yamato flexed his fingers carefully and said, “We’re coming up on Albuquerque. I have to drop off a load of lumber and then I’m moving on to Oklahoma City.”

“Immediately?” Kakashi said.

“Yes,” Yamato said. “I’ll probably keep going until we hit Amarillo and then rest at a truck stop for a few hours. It has to make it there before noon tomorrow and it’s almost eight hours from here, so.”

Kakashi coughed a little. “Is it all right if I stay with you for Oklahoma City?”

“Yes,” Yamato said. “No breaking my fingers, though.”

“This is probably not a good question to ask, but why aren’t you more pissed?”

Yamato glanced over. Kakashi had one hand on his suitcase and one hand on the door handle. He’d never buckled himself in, Yamato realized. He’d been prepared to make a quick getaway if Yamato turned out to be violent or something.

“I don’t know,” Yamato said. “You have some issues around sleep. You can’t fix sleep issues. I have nightmares on occasion, I know how that is. You didn’t actually injure me. It’s not a big deal.”

Kakashi stared. “Not a big deal?”

“Are you ex-military?” Yamato asked.

Kakashi’s hand tightened on the door handle. “Why.”

Yamato shrugged. “When I first left the army, I was tense all the time. Especially when I was tired. And you’re good at hurting people, or almost hurting people. It makes sense.”

Kakashi settled back in his seat. “Yeah. It’s been a few years though.”

Yamato nodded. “I hitchhiked a lot after I left.”

“Why?” Kakashi asked.

“Why’re you doing it?” Yamato said.

“I asked first.”

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Same.”

Yamato rolled his eyes. “All right. But now you have somewhere to be?”

“Yeah, I gotta save my kid from some poor choices,” Kakashi said. He waved a hand at Yamato’s sharp look. “Well, okay, he’s not technically my kid, but Iruka’s coddling him too much and he’s hung up on this boy who’s bad news, so I’m gonna show up and his friends and I are gonna yell at him about trying harder in school and shit.”

“Is it an intervention?” Yamato asked.

Kakashi laughed. “Oh man, Naruto on drugs. No, he’s just got his priorities all fucked and Iruka’s too busy to keep straightening him out alone. Maybe that writer we know can get him an internship…”

“You’re going to have to get in the bunk area,” Yamato said suddenly. He turned off on the exit that would lead him to the lumber yard. “I just have to drop this off and then we’ll be moving again, but they don’t like us to pick up hitchhikers.”

“Oooh, hiding me under the mattress like a dirty magazine,” Kakashi said.

Yamato twitched. “That’s not— No! What?”

Kakashi snickered. He hauled his ragged suitcase up to the self behind the seats where Yamato had stashed a sleeping bag and snacks and spare clothes, then carefully slid himself after it. “Privacy curtain, nice.” There was a rattle of rings as the cloth slid across and hid him from view.

“This’ll only be a few minutes,” Yamato said. And then, unsure of why he felt the need to say it, he added, “Don’t do anything… weird. In there.”

“You ruin my fun,” said Kakashi’s disembodied voice.

Yamato frowned but he was pulling up in front of the site supervisor so he let it go.

 

 

 

 

 

“You can come out,” Yamato said once they were on the road again.

Kakashi’s head emerged. “Those were really loud truckers.”

“Yes,” Yamato said.

“Why aren’t you a loud trucker, Tenzo?”

“Because people aren’t all the same. Even if they’re in the same profession.”

Kakashi hummed quietly. 

“Are you coming down?” Yamato asked.

“It’s comfortable up here,” Kakashi said. “You know, I was thinking.”

“Oh?”

“I’d kind of like to pay you back for all this driving you’re doing for me especially since it’s not allowed to pick up hitchhikers, and plus you’re the only quiet trucker I’ve met who didn’t give off serial killer vibes. So let me know if you want a blowjob.”

“That’s… really not necessary,” Yamato said.

Kakashi reached over and tapped the brim of his baseball cap. “Oh, I know. But I’m offering.”

It was amazing Yamato hadn’t swerved them into oncoming traffic. “You’re. Um. I’m turning the radio back on. I’ll be stopping in four hours or so. Let me know if you need to use the bathroom before then.”

“You’re _shy_ ,” Kakashi said. He sounded delighted about that fact.

“Yes,” Yamato said, because compared to Kakashi, he was feeling pretty shy. Or maybe he was feeling terrified. It was hard to tell. He mostly just felt like he’d fallen into a bad porno with no understanding of how he’d gotten here. No stranger had ever just offered to blow him before. At least, not while sober.

“Not homophobic, though?” Kakashi was saying.

“No,” Yamato said.

“Gay? Bi? Please don’t say straight.”

Yamato’s hand were sweating on the wheel. “I’m not straight. This is getting really personal.”

“Just making conversation,” Kakashi said. He sounded far too cheerful.

“Tell me about this kid you’re going to an intervention for, then,” Yamato said. “Your life sounds much more interesting than mine.”

“I could _make_ your life more interesting,” Kakashi said, and then he tapped Yamato’s baseball cap again. “All right, all right, I’ll stop. He’s just a kid I mentored when he was in middle school. Naruto. He’s adopted and his dad’s a teacher with way too much work to do. So I was kind of after-school tutor and babysitter. This was after I got out of the army, about four years ago or so. Couldn’t keep any job but that one, but the army pays me disability so.”

“Disability?” Yamato said, and then he quickly added, “Sorry, you don’t have to tell me.”

“Nah, I lost an eye and some stuff happened to my face on a mission,” Kakashi said. “It’s no big deal.”

“And then you took up hitchhiking?” Yamato said, because he really didn’t know how else to respond to that. Was Kakashi teasing him about being too nonchalant about violence earlier, or was he saying that Yamato was insensitive?

“Well, Naruto and Iruka moved. And I kinda wanted a change of scenery after that, so I started wandering. But I got an email a few days back about this intervention thing so now I know where to go. It’ll be nice to see those kids again.” Kakashi sounded a little wistful.

“You mentored more kids than just Naruto?” Yamato said.

“Yeah, there was this girl Sakura who was definitely the most well-adjusted in the group even if she was boy-crazy,” Kakashi said. “And then, uh.” He fell silent. It seemed he was done talking.

Yamato flicked through radio stations to find one without commercials. He landed back on the hipster station. “ _A 747 just left with you. Now early every morning I come to, somebody took a bite out of my bed: you._ ”

“The kid who’s a bad influence was in our group,” Kakashi said finally.

“Ah,” Yamato said.

“He’s not even really there anymore, but for some reason Naruto’s obsessed with him.” Kakashi sighed. “Some people just can’t be saved but try and tell that to Naruto. He feels everything so strongly. I dunno, he’s passionate. I don’t see that much. It’s sweet but it’s also painfully naive.”

“Ah,” Yamato said.

“So now will you tell me if you’re into the BJ idea or what?”

Yamato winced. “Um. Well. Not right now.”

“Oh, so it’s still on the table then?” Kakashi said cheerfully.

“Um.”

“You can say yes, I don’t know anyone who’d flat-out turn down a beej.”

“I. Okay.”

“I have intrigued you,” Kakashi said. It was amazing how easy it was to tell that the man was smiling, even though his mouth and most of his face were hidden.

“Can we talk about something else?” Yamato said.

“Sure,” Kakashi said. “I have some books I can read from, too, if you feel like it.”

“Oh?” Yamato said, leaping on anything that would get them away from sex talk. “What kinds of books?”

“Mmm novels. Just novels,” Kakashi said.

“Realistic fiction, magical realism, what?” Yamato asked.

“You know, I could just go ahead and read one to you,” Kakashi said. He ducked behind the curtain and Yamato could hear him rifling through that suitcase. “You like medieval stuff or more modern?”

“Um, modern,” Yamato said.

“Awesome,” Kakashi said. “Here, turn off the radio and I’ll start at the beginning.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamato pulled into a Love’s on the edge of Amarillo, Texas at 3:07am. “All right, I’m going to use the bathroom and then pass out for a while. We’re a little less than four hours from Oklahoma City.” He hopped out of the cab and stretched, feeling the burn in his knees from too long in a truck.

Kakashi followed him out. “Is there food around here?”

“There’s a Waffle House that’ll be open by six,” Yamato said, pointing down the street. “It’s why I park here.”

The lot was mostly empty, but this was a 24-hour truck stop so the lights were on in the convenience store. Yamato got the bathroom key from the dull-eyed teen attendant. Kakashi was a silent shadow the entire time. It should have been unnerving but Yamato was in the haze that came from driving for too long in the dark. Even Kakashi’s increasingly filthy reading material had been funny instead of disgusting. He’d laughed at every unbelievable line and inappropriate anatomical description. Kakashi had read on with the solemnity of a priest reading a passage of Scripture, too, which had only added to the hilarity. That long stretch of highway had passed more quickly than it ever had before.

“Hey, Tenzo,” Kakashi said quietly.

“Hmmm?” Yamato hummed as he steered himself down the fluorescent-lit aisles of junk food, aiming for the back of the store.

“It’s a single bathroom?”

“Yeah,” Yamato said. He yawned.

Kakashi seemed to be waiting for something but all he eventually said was, “How’re you feeling?”

“Tired,” Yamato murmured.

“Ah,” Kakashi said. “All right. Can I use it after you?”

“Sure,” Yamato said.

It wasn’t until he’d handed off the key and stumbled back to his truck that Yamato remembered Kakashi’s sexual offer.

“Oh,” Yamato said to himself. “Idiot.” The whole ‘Is this a single bathroom’ question made a lot more sense. It wasn’t like he was conscious enough to enjoy it, though. He was far too sleep-deprived to be indulging in anything like that.

He pulled himself into his cab, dragged his heavy limbs up onto the sleeping shelf behind the seats, wrapped himself in his sleeping bag, and barely remembered to set a timer for three hours before his eyes were drifting shut.

He heard Kakashi climb into the truck just as he was slipping into sleep. “Tenzo?”

Yamato grunted.

“You care where I sleep?”

“No,” Yamato grumbled. And then he was out cold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The timer went off. Yamato jerked, groaned in annoyance, and reached out. He rubbed his hand over something warm and stubbly and came fully awake with a yell. “Holy shit!”

“Owww,” Kakashi whined, covering his face with his hands.

The timer was still going off. Yamato fumbled with it until the incessant beeping ceased. “Jesus, you scared me,” he wheezed.

“Very rude, Tenzo,” Kakashi said between his fingers. His large hands still spanned his face, hiding everything except his one baleful eye.

“What’re you doing up here?” Yamato said.

“You said I could sleep wherever,” Kakashi said.

Yamato sighed. “I did. All right. Get down, let’s eat and get on the road.”

Kakashi didn’t move. His hands were still hiding his face. “Um.”

“What is it?” Yamato said.

“Could you, like. Not look?”

Yamato’s brow wrinkled. “What? Why not?”

“Remember how the military has to pay me disability?”

Yamato blinked. “Oh. I don’t mind.”

Kakashi’s single visible eye rolled in its socket. “Yeah, you say that but then I take my hands away and all hell breaks loose.”

Yamato propped his head up on his hand. “I volunteer at a veteran’s hospital when I don’t have work to do. If it’s not something you want me to see I can respect that, but I can promise I won’t be weird about it.”

Kakashi’s hands slipped lower on his face. There was significant scarring around his left eye socket, a thick cluster of lines crawling up towards his hairline and tearing across the closed lid of his eye. “Really?”

Yamato nodded. “Really.”

Kakashi looked at him for a moment, unblinking, then took his hands away and started fumbling for the strip of fabric he normally had wrapped around his face. His scars were like dragging wet fingers across glass. A lot of thin lines radiating up, slashing through his cheeks and lips. They were clearly old scars. He kept his left eye closed and tied his knots efficiently. 

Yamato indulged in a huge yawn and stretch, his hands and feet tapping the farthest reached of his sleeping space. “Waffles?”

Kakashi adjusted his eyepatch. “Absolutely.”

Yamato followed Kakashi out of the truck cab. The sun hadn’t yet risen but it was close to coming up. It was almost 6:30am and the sky was dark blue and clear. The two of them walked down the street, Kakashi with his hands in his pockets and Yamato trying to cram his bedhead under his ‘Don’t Mess With Texas, We’ll Kick Your Ass’ hat. The moment they entered the Waffle House, Yamato felt himself relax. He hadn’t know he was tense but Yamato always found the familiarity of such places to be comforting. You knew exactly what you were getting into when you stepped into a chain restaurant like this. They sat down and ordered waffles. Yamato got coffee. Kakashi asked for orange juice and hot chocolate and a side of bacon.

“We’ll be in Oklahoma City by eleven, I think,” Yamato said, squinting at the paper he’d planned his route on. “That’s good. Where are you headed for?”

“Farther than that,” Kakashi said. His ankles kept tangling with Yamato’s. The man seemed to have spread out to take up more space than he deserved in the booth.

“Yes, but where?” Yamato asked patiently.

Kakashi shrugged. “Missouri.”

“Whereabouts in Missouri?” Yamato asked, sliding a map of the Midwest across the table.

Kakashi leaned in on the right state and planted a finger. “Around there. I’m going to have to find an internet cafe or a public library or something and check the email again but they were near the Mark Twain National Forest.”

Yamato eyed the distance. “About four hundred miles, I’d say. And you have to be there when?”

“Tomorrow,” Kakashi said. He scratched under his eyepatch. “In the morning, preferably.”

“That’s about six hours,” Yamato said. He looked out the window, where the first streaks of color were appearing on the horizon. “I could take you there.”

Kakashi’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”

“Yes. I don’t have to be back until Monday,” Yamato said. “I don’t mind dropping you off.”

“You don’t have to go all the way to Missouri to collect on that BJ offer, Tenzo,” Kakashi said, grinning behind his mask.

“Okay, no, that’s not what— Why do you keep bringing that up?” Yamato said.

“Why do you think?” Kakashi said. He waggled his eyebrows.

Their waffles were plopped down before Yamato could say anything. He dug in so he could continue to avoid saying anything. Kakashi slipped bites of food under his mask and bumped Yamato’s knees every so often. His single visible eye was crinkled with amusement but he didn’t speak. 

“I’m getting this lumber to Oklahoma City,” Yamato said finally.

“Yes?” Kakashi said.

“And after that,” Yamato said, “I’ll have a little bit of free time.”

“Yeeees?” Kakashi said, drawling the word into something highly suggestive.

Yamato kept his eyes firmly on his coffee as he raised the cup to his lips. “Or maybe a lot of free time.”

“Yes,” Kakashi said happily, tapping his toes on Yamato’s. 

“But I want to let you know, Tenzo isn’t my real name,” Yamato said.

Kakashi waved a hand. “Eh. I like Tenzo.”

They finished the rest of their breakfast in silence but Yamato was sure every other diner there was probably wondering why they were both smirking at their waffles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if Yamato's hat exists but I'm sure there's a version out there. Yamato in a trucker hat. A gift to myself.
> 
> All the radio music comes from a playlist my friend made for this pairing. First song’s ‘Everlasting Light’ by The Black Keys, second song’s ‘A Bite Out Of My Bed’ by The New Pornographers, and the two songs that are only vaguely referenced are ‘Wait So Long’ by Trampled by Turtles (not super Mumford-and-Sons-y but there is fiddle and banjo happening) and ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ by the Minnesota Beatle Project (this one’s cheating, it sounds nothing like The Beatles; it’s an interpretation of their song).
> 
> I’m on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line for Waffle Houses but this particular truck stop is real and is just a few short steps from a Waffle House, so. Waffle House. I don’t know anything about them first-hand.
> 
> I decided that Salem, Missouri is close enough to a giant forest that Naruto can still grow up with way too many trees so that’s where he and Iruka moved.


	5. Boop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Literally the day my friend sent me "Librarian AU" as a prompt someone else posted one here. But I did this anyway because why the heck not, we all need more librarian AUs.

Kakashi was browsing the erotica section for something he hadn’t read three times. It was almost Story Time and these kids were getting jaded. _A Duke of Her Own_ wasn’t cutting it anymore.

“Excuse me?”

There were other books in the Desperate Duchesses series, of course, but Quinn Cimarron had done some amazing work with werewolves that it could be useful to explore. Maybe it would calm down those kids who were desperate to get a pet. Or make them even more excited, who knew with kindergardeners.

“Um, can you help me?”

Oh, but there was a whole world of other shape shifters. Mountain lions and snakes and cuttlefish…

A hand tapped Kakashi’s shoulder. 

“What?” Kakashi said, still scanning the shelves.

“You work here, yes?” a man asked.

Kakashi sighed, automatically patting his chest. Laminated plastic met his fingers. His name badge had snuck out from behind his scarf again, and there went his alibi. “Yeah, I work here.”

“I need to order some books.”

Kakashi looked over, projecting as much disinterest as he could. “Okay. So go ahead.”

The man in front of him raised an eyebrow. “It’s been a while since I used your system. Everything’s changed.”

“You have a library card?” Kakashi asked, scratching at the scar running through his red eye. Heterochromia as intense as his usually threw people off but this guy hadn’t said at thing. He just looked vaguely annoyed.

“Yes.”

“And yet you don’t know how to use the library.”

The man’s large eyes narrowed. “Your ordering system has changed,” he said, enunciating clearly.

Kakashi sighed and raised his gaze to the ceiling as if he were asking for help from the heavens. “Fine.” He slouched over to an empty computer terminal and leaned on it. “Type it in.”

“Type _what_ in?” the man said sharply.

“Title, author, subject, whatever,” Kakashi said. He was going to be extra late to Story Time but at least he had a real excuse standing before him, with a bad haircut and big eyes and really nice shoulders and… Huh. Kakashi shifted, straightening his spine a bit. The man looked good in a turtleneck. 

Mister Maybe-Not-So-Annoying pulled a receipt out of his pocket and ran a finger down a handwritten list on the back. It was a long receipt, and it was a long list. Kakashi twisted his head and scanned the titles. The handwriting was round and easy to read:

 _500 Cabinets: A Showcase of Design & Craftsmanship_ by Ray Hemachandra  
 _Pottery Barn Storage & Display: Stylish Solutions for Organizing Your Home_  
 _Ultimate Guide to Cabinets, Shelves & Home Storage Solutions_  
 _Designing and Building Cabinets: The New Best of Fine Woodworking_  
 _Building Kitchen Cabinets_ by Udo Schmidt  
 _The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide_ by George Hepplewhite  
 _Bob Lang’s The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker, Revised Edition_ by Robert W. Lang  
 _Fine Woodworking Chests and Cabinets_  
 _Best Signature Kitchens: Over 100 Fabulous Kitchens from Top Designers_  
 _The Elements of Style: An Encyclopedia of Domestic Architectural Detail_ edited by Stephen Calloway, revised and updated by Alan Powers  
 _Dealer’s Choice: At Home With Purveyors of Antique and Vintage Furnishings_ by Craig Kellogg  
 _Axel Vervoordt: Living with Light_ by Axel Vervoordt  
 _Jean-Louis Denoit: Interiors_ by Diane Dorrans Saeks  
 _Modern to Classic: Residential Estates by Landry Design Group_ by Richard Landry, Paul Goldberger, Michael Webb

“What the actual fuck,” Kakashi said.

The man’s head jerked up. “Excuse me?”

“You seem to be jonesing for cabinets,” Kakashi said. “Is this like a kink? Carpentry kink? A particular style of hinge really does it for you?”

The man’s eyebrows had slowly risen the more Kakashi spoke, and now they were nearly at his hairline. “Excuse me?” he said again, voice faint.

“I’m just curious,” Kakashi said. He leaned his forearms on the counter of the computer kiosk and got in the man’s space a little. “Enlighten me as to why you’re getting these. I hope it’s not cuz you’re shacking up with someone. That would be just too disappointing.”

The man appeared to have shut down in some way in the face of Kakashi shamelessly flirting (the library gig was good but it got real dull real quick dealing with kids knee-high all day). When he spoke, his voice was monotone, professional. “I’m interested in Italian cabinetry and a search online gave me these titles. I hope you have at least a few.”

“Mmm doubt it,” Kakashi said. 

“Why do you doubt it?” the man said.

“Well, we don’t have the widest selection here, in case you didn’t realize how tiny this place is,” Kakashi said. He waved a hand around to illustrate his point; there were two rooms in this library, one room for all the novels and nonfiction and another, smaller room for young adult and kid books. The children’s section was starting to sound a little chaotic. Kakashi could distinctly hear that loud kid who was always drawing whiskers on his face (“I’M NOT A KITTY I’M A FOX RAGH” was the clearest sentence Kakashi had gotten out of him in the past six months). He was probably trying to incite a riot. 

Head Librarian Tsunade was going to chew Kakashi out later but _this_ guy seemed worth a half-hour lecture on punctuality. He looked like someone who would be a lot of fun to mess with. It probably said something about Kakashi that his type was prudish but indulgent. The fact that this man hadn’t walked off to find a different (better) librarian indicated that he didn’t give up easily. Even now his mouth was settling into a thin, determined line.

“Let’s see what you _do_ have, then,” he said, and he typed in the first title with efficient, finger-picking keystrokes. 

Kakashi couldn’t hide his grin behind his scarf. He hadn’t seen two-finger typing in years. No wonder he’d needed help navigating their catalogue.

The man frowned at whatever popped up on the screen, then went back to typing. He fell into a pattern of typetypetype _glare_ backspacebackspacebackspace typetypetype _glare_ and so on. As Kakashi had predicted, he wasn’t having any luck with his titles.

“Too obscure,” Kakashi offered. “Italian cabinetry books are too specific. Try just typing 'cabinetry' in there. Or— Are you looking to build some Italian cabinets as part of your sexy fantasy, or do you just want to look at all the different kinds?”

The man leveled a cold stare at him. “You have a sick mind.”

Kakashi leered at him and winked. “Oh yeah, baby.”

The man actually physically recoiled at that. “What are you _doing_?”

“Entertaining myself,” Kakashi said with a shrug. Maybe he’d pushed too far. He moved back, away from the computer, and stuck his hands in his pockets again. “Gets a bit boring in the kid’s section.”

“You— Are you the _children’s librarian_?” the man said. He sounded scandalized, like some kind of grandmother. Kakashi couldn’t help but snicker.

“Yep,” he said. “And it’s past Story Time, too. I have to find something to read them besides _Go the Fuck to Sleep so_ I was browsing the romances but I think I’ve exhausted our supply. Maybe if I go back by the YA I can pick up a copy of _Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging_ , but I think British English slang might be getting too advanced—”

The man covered his mouth with his hand but his eyes were positively twinkling. “You’re kidding me.”

“Not at all,” Kakashi said. “I’m thinking of getting them into shapeshifters now that we covered regency-era romance.”

The man laughed. It was a quiet kind of laugh, deep and breathy, and Kakashi enjoyed watching how his eyes crinkled up and his teeth caught on his lip as he tried to keep it contained.

“But enough about me,” Kakashi said, once the laugh seemed to be dying out. “We need to get you your woodworking porn.”

The man was still smiling at him. “I suppose so.”

“So are you looking for a DIY project or a few full-page spreads?” Kakashi asked again.

“Full page spreads,” the man said. He turned a bit pink as he said it, but he met Kakashi’s eyes without hesitation.

Kakashi nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, maybe try interior decorating books.”

i-n-t-e-r-i-o-r-space-d-e-c-o-r-a-t-i-n-g the man typed, painfully slow at one key per second. He cocked his head at the list that emerged. “Ah.”

“See something you like?” Kakashi asked, winking. The wink was wasted because he was already scrabbling through the paper-and-pencil bins. He started jotting down call numbers much faster than he typed. His handwriting was textbook, absolutely perfect.

Kakashi could hear the kiddos building to a dull roar in the other room. His time was almost up, and it seemed that he’d helped this guy as much as he needed help. Back to children.

“Can I help you find things?” Kakashi asked, desperate to put off Story Time for another ten minutes.

The man kept his eyes on the screen, hand moving to write down more numbers. “I’m going to have to order most of these,” he said. “Your selection really is sub-par. But here—” he passed Kakashi one full notecard “—if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Kakashi said cheerfully. He ducked down the aisles and made the Dewey decimal system his bitch. He had a stack of five books when he emerged. The man was still glaring at the computer screen, now with the tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. 

He clicked the mouse a few times, then looked up. “Oh, you found those fast.”

“I’m good,” Kakashi said. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively 

The corners of the man’s mouth twitched. “Well. I’ll check those out.” He reached for the stack.

“Actually I don’t think you can be trusted with self-checkout,” Kakashi said, backing away. He stepped behind the check out desk and held out a hand. “Card, please.”

“I can check them out myself,” the man said, but he dug in his pocket and pulled out his library card. “The system can’t have changed _that_ much.”

Kakashi squinted at it. “Mmm. Yamato, huh?”

“Yes,” the man said.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Kakashi said, fanning himself with the little piece of plastic, “but this card’s registration needs to be updated.”

“I’m sorry?” Yamato said, brow wrinkling.

“I need your age, relationship status, and phone number,” Kakashi said, feigning a yawn.

“Oh,” Yamato said. His face smoothed over to blank. “Really.”

Kakashi shrugged. “Standard stuff.”

“Twenty-three,” Yamato said slowly, “single, and—”

“Oh, you actually have to write that last one down,” Kakashi said, scanning the library card’s barcode. The computer went _boop_.

Yamato nodded slowly. “I see.”

Kakashi started scanning the books. “Well, go on.” _Boop._ “Write it down for me.” _Boop._

“For you?” Yamato said. His poker face was starting to crack, eyes crinkling with amusement.

Kakashi winked. _Boop._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yamato’s initial problem is based on the time I went to college in a different state for four years and by the time I came back they’d fucked with the public library system and I whined about it for far too long. I figured it out eventually.
> 
>  _Go the Fuck to Sleep_ is a great book, even better if you can get the audiobook by Samuel L. Jackson. I won’t deny reading _Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging_. That title just begs to be read. However, I cannot personally endorse any of the erotica or cabinetry books in this fic cuz I haven’t read any of them. Sorry. They are all real, if you’re into cabinetry and/or romance novels. I strive for pointless accuracy in my fics.


	6. Interstellar no Jutsu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year in phone sex across the depths of outer space.

“We have liftoff!”

Everyone smiled. There was a gentle relaxation of shoulders and an unclenching of sphincters, and then half the room left for the day. Their shift ended once the damn spaceship was in the air.

For Yamato, though, it was all just beginning. He sank his fingers into his hair and stared at the blinking yellow dot moving out of orbit. That repurposed, rickety and experimental spaceship held the sum contents of Yamato’s academic career.

They were sending a manned mission into space for just under a year to test various academics’ hypotheses, and one artist’s new long-range High Resolution Channel camera. Yamato’s project was to determine the effect of cosmic radiation on his experimental plantlife. The astronaut was going to drop little self-contained ecosystems at varying orbits and then track what happened to them. He would have a few other projects to set up and observe as well, of course. They weren’t going to ship someone out there just for space plants. Privately, though, Yamato knew his project was the most important. If they could keep his specially modified plants alive in space, it would mean that they could use some of the most efficient oxygen-scrubbers that bioengineering had ever designed. In theory, it all worked out. No one liked to rely solely on theory, though. The astronaut program needed to test new pilots, various astrophysicists and astronomers and out-of-left-field academics like Yamato wanted to test the effects of space itself—why not test everything all at once?

And that’s why Pilot and Mission Specialist Hatake Kakashi would be monitoring all the experiments while he survived in space for a year.

 

 

 

 

MISSION LOG  
05/14/- -, 0601  
[Y] CALLED TO CHECK IN ON EXPERIMENT. NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGE.  
.  
.  
.  
05/16/- -, 0612  
[Y] CALLED TO CHECK IN ON EXPERIMENT. STILL NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGE. I POINTED OUT IT’S BEEN 3 DAYS SINCE I LEFT ORBIT. [Y] GOT SNIPPY.  
.  
.  
.  
05/19/- -, 0608  
[Y] CALLED TO CHECK IN ON EXPERIMENT /AGAIN/ AND /AGAIN/ STILL NO CHANGES. MORE SASS FROM HIM THAN WAS STRICTLY NECESSARY, IN MY OPINION. HE’S WAY TOO URGENT ABOUT THOSE PLANTS.  
.  
.  
.  
05/22/- -, 0556  
[Y] CALLED TO CHECK IN ON EXPERIMENT, NO CHANGE. I TOLD HIM THAT /SOME/ PEOPLE LIKE THEIR FUCKIN SLEEP AND NEED TEN HOURS A NIGHT AND DON’T APPRECIATE BEING WOKEN UP AT ASS-O-CLOCK TO LOOK AT FUCKIN PLANTS. I DISCONNECTED BEFORE RESPONSE AND I’M GOING BACK TO SLEEP. I DIDN’T CHECK HIS EXPERIMENT BUT I BET THERE’S NO CHANGE BECAUSE IT’S ONLY BEEN NINE GODDAMN DAYS.

 

05/22/- -, 0956  
[Y] YELLED AT LENGTH IN A TEXT RESPONSE SINCE I ‘ACCIDENTALLY’ TURNED OFF CALLING FEATURE ON VIDEO FEED (WILL REINSTALL BY 1100 HOURS TODAY). [Y] HAS A LARGE VOCABULARY AND SEEMS TO THINK HIS EXPERIMENT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT. I SENT A REPLY CONSISTING ENTIRELY OF EMOJIS. RESPOND TO THAT, ASSHOLE.

 

05/22/- -, 1023  
[Y] APPARENTLY HAS NO LIFE BECAUSE HE’S ALREADY ANSWERED MY MESSAGE. HE CONSIDERS ME ‘UNPROFESSIONAL.’ I THINK HE’S UNPROFESSIONAL BECAUSE HE’S A LOSER AND HE’S CONFINED BY GRAVITY WHEREAS I CAN DO AN INDEFINITE NUMBER OF BACKFLIPS WITHOUT TOUCHING ANY WALLS OR FLOORS OR CEILINGS.

 

05/22/- -, 1645  
I GOT REPRIMANDED BY CHIEF [T] FOR HOW I’M HANDLING THE [Y] INCIDENT AND ALSO HOW I’M USING THIS MISSION LOG. I DON’T GIVE A FUCK, [Y] IS A NERD AND I’M JUST POINTING IT OUT. DON’T READ IT IF YOU DON’T WANT MY OPINION.

 

05/22/- -, 2302  
I HAVE BEEN ORDERED TO PREFACE ANY ENTRIES IN THIS MISSION LOG WITH ‘UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY’ WHEN ENTRIES CONTAIN MY OPINIONS. I WILL DO SO IN THE FUTURE.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: [Y] IS STILL A BIG NERD.  
.  
.  
.  
05/24/- -, 0800  
I WOKE UP TO YET ANOTHER MESSAGE FROM [Y], BUT THIS TIME IT WASN’T HIM DEMANDING THAT I CHECK HIS PROJECT. HE WAS APOLOGIZING FOR HIS RESPONSE TO ME NOT CHECKING HIS PLANTS. AND THEN HE ASKED ME TO CHECK HIS PLANTS. NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO REPORT.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: [Y] IS VERY GOOD AT SEEMING SINCERE RIGHT UP UNTIL HE ASKS YOU TO DO SOMETHING, THEN HE JUST LOOKS TERRIFYING. I MUST LEARN HOW HE DOES THAT THING WITH HIS EYES. ALSO, APPARENTLY THEY DON’T GET VIDEO FEED OF ME DOWN IN MISSION CONTROL, I JUST GET VIDEO FEED OF THEM? MISSION CONTROL HAS WAY TOO MUCH MOUNTAIN DEW AT THE MOMENT, MISSION CONTROL IS STAFFED BY NERDS.  
.  
.  
.  
05/30/- -, 0233  
I DEPLOYED THE FIRST (1) OF [Y]’S SPECIMENS. SPATIAL COORDINATES NOTED. I HAVE NOTIFIED [Y] OF THIS PROGRESS.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: I DELIBERATELY WOKE HIM UP AT 2AM HIS TIME TO PISS HIM OFF BUT HE WENT FROM SLEEPY TO EXCITED IN LESS THAN A SECOND SO THAT BACKFIRED. HE’S KINDA CUTE WHEN HE’S SMILING THAT HARD. FOR A NERD, OF COURSE.

 

05/30/- -, 1306  
[Y] CALLED FOR AN UPDATE ON SPECIMEN ONE (1). THERE HAVEN’T BEEN ANY SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN THE PAST ELEVEN HOURS. HE TOOK IT BETTER THAN HE HAS BEEN REACTING SO FAR.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: HE TOLD ME WHY HE’S SO EAGER TO SEE PROGRESS. I HAVE DECIDED [Y] IS EXTREMELY CUTE, PERHAPS BORDERING ON HOT. HE SHOULD TAKE HIS SHIRT OFF SO I CAN VERIFY THIS. FUCK, I SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT MORE PORN IF THIS IS HOW I START THINKING AFTER, WHAT’S IT BEEN, SIXTEEN DAYS? SEVENTEEN? THE PROBLEM IS I HAD TO PLAN FOR HOW MANY TISSUES TO BRING FOR A YEAR IN SPACE. I WAS HOPING MY LIBIDO WOULD GO INTO CRYOGENIC SLEEP OR SOMETHING. I WAS WRONG. I WILL START TISSUE RATIONING IMMEDIATELY. ACTUALLY, I’M SUPPOSED TO BAG EVERYTHING SO NONE OF MY FLUIDS GET ANYWHERE THEY SHOULDN’T, SO. THIS WILL BE A HERCULEAN TASK.  
.  
.  
.  
06/13/- -, 0345  
SECOND (2) OF [Y]’S SPECIMENS DEPLOYED. SPATIAL COORDINATES NOTED. 

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: MY INTERNAL CLOCK IS GETTING FUCKED UP. I ONLY HAVE TO REPORT IN ONCE A DAY UNLESS THERE’S AN EMERGENCY AND I CAN’T CALL IN AT OTHER TIMES (LIKE WHEN I’M BORED) BECAUSE IT WOULD BE TREATED AS IF IT WAS AN EMERGENCY. I HAVE A TON OF MOVIES AND BOOKS AND PORN AND STUFF BUT STILL. I GO THROUGH PERIODS WHERE I SLEEP FOR TWELVE HOURS OR MORE, AND THEN I’LL GO FOR 30 HOURS WITHOUT BEING TIRED. IT’S THROWING ME OFF. I’VE BEEN USING EARTH TIME RELATIVE TO MISSON CONTROL BUT THE NUMBERS DON’T REALLY MEAN ANYTHING. I SHOULDN’T HAVE FUCKED WITH THE INTERNAL LIGHTS. THEY WOULD HAVE MADE IT SEEM LIKE I WAS CYCLING THROUGH A NORMAL DAY. MY BAD.  
.  
.  
.  
07/04/- -, 0124  
[Y] CALLED FOR AN UPDATE. AN UNUSUAL TIME FOR HIM TO BE AT MISSION CONTROL BUT HE HAD SOME WORK TO DO. I TOLD HIM I’M PREPPING HIS THIRD SPECIMEN (3) TO DROP IN THREE HOURS. 

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: I COULD HAVE HAD THE DROP DONE AN HOUR AGO BUT WE CHATTED. HE’S REALLY CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT IT’S LIKE UP HERE, WHAT I’M DOING TO PASS THE TIME, ALL THAT. I LIED OUT MY ASS BUT [Y] LAUGHED AT MY JOKES—OR AT LEAST HE SMILED A LITTLE, WHICH COUNTS AS A LAUGH WHEN IT COMES FROM HIM—IT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. ALSO, HE CALLED ME FROM HIS BEDROOM? I LIED IN THE OFFICIAL PART OF THIS MISSION LOG BECAUSE IT’S PROBABLY ILLEGAL BUT HE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT . 

HE HAS A REALLY BORING BEDROOM, THE ONE CORNER OF IT I SAW. HE WAS IN BED. I WILL BE SAVING THOSE SCREENSHOTS FOR THE SPANK BANK. DOES HE EVEN KNOW I CAN SEE HIM OR IS HE LIKE THOSE OLD PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW THE COMPUTER CAMERA’S ON? I SHOULD WAIT AND ASK SOMETIME WHEN HE’S IN PUBLIC, JUST TO SEE HOW RED HE GETS.

 

 

 

 

Yamato rubbed his forehead after he’d disconnected the call. It was much later than he’d anticipated. He was an early riser by habit, so he’d be awake at 6am on the dot even though that would only leave him with four hours of sleep. There was no time to nap tomorrow, either; he had another grant proposal to write. He needed more funding for his ecological experiments. He was making a lot of progress in accelerated growth and oxygen scrubbing, which had practical applications both for environmental renewal and sustainable space travel, but no one wanted to pay him to mess around with trees. Even with concrete evidence that the bioengineering was working, the idea of plants providing air for astronauts was a hard sell.

The grant proposal was very important. For some reason, though, he couldn’t stop bothering Pilot Hatake. Though his initial impression of the man had been poor, it had slowly become apparent that Pilot Hatake was an absolutely brilliant astronaut. He reported details with a detachment that bordered on boredom but Chief Tsunade said that it was the most punctual he’d ever been. He called at the same time with a rigid regularity. His focus must be intense. The mental strength it would take to be alone for a year in the void… Yamato didn’t want to think about it for too long or else he felt the bed start to tip, the yawning horror of space and time spreading before him. 

He powered down his tablet and lay back. It was definitely illegal to be hacking the space program’s computers and remotely accessing the call feature, but Yamato was getting desperate for results.

And. Well. Pilot Hatake was notoriously press-shy, all of his photoshoots obscuring his face with a hat pulled low and scarf pulled up or in a helmet and turned in profile to some photoshopped stars. It was… interesting. Interesting in the kind of way where Yamato wanted to see what he looked like out of the bulky space suit. Not that it would _happen_ any time soon. He was just a bobbing volume bar on Yamato’s screen every time Yamato called him. But perhaps in the future… 

In the dark of his closet-sized bedroom, Yamato allowed himself to smile.

 

 

 

 

07/14/- -, 1847  
UPDATED [Y] ON STATUS OF SPECIMENS 1-6. PREPPING SEVENTH SPECIMEN (7) TO DROP TOMORROW AT 0600. 

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: HE’S THE ONLY PERSON WHO CALLS ME JUST BECAUSE, EVEN THOUGH HE’S STILL PRETTY PUSHY ABOUT SPECIMEN UPDATES. I THINK HIS GRANT DIDN’T GO THROUGH. HE LOOKED TIRED. HE SAID HE TOOK ON A TEACHING JOB TO PAY RENT. HE’S TUTORING A FEW KIDS AROUND MISSION CONTROL, INCLUDING THAT KID I WAS IN CHARGE OF MENTORING, NARUTO. NARUTO IS A FUCKING /HANDFUL/, I CAN SEE WHY [Y] LOOKS SO TIRED. 

I DEFINITELY JERKED OFF AFTER HE HUNG UP. I’M NOT SURE IF IT’S RELATED. PROBABLY IS.  
.  
.  
.  
09/03/- -, 1004  
FINAL SPECIMEN (9) IN [Y]’S PROJECT HAS BEEN DEPLOYED. SPATIAL COORDINATES NOTED. [Y] HAS BEEN INFORMED.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: [Y] OFFERED TO HAVE NARUTO COME IN AND SAY HI ON VIDEO CHAT. [Y] STILL DOESN’T KNOW IT’S A VIDEO CHAT, WHICH IS THE GREATEST LONG-RUNNING JOKE EVER. I’VE WATCHED HIM PICK HIS NOSE SO MANY TIMES. WE’LL SEE IF THE KID SHOWS UP, THOUGH. NARUTO IS TERRIBLE AT STAYING IN TOUCH AND I’M IN SPACE.

I SOMETIMES FORGET I’M ONLY IN SPACE FOR A FINITE AMOUNT OF TIME. I START DECELERATION SOON AND I’LL BE HEADING BACK THE WAY I CAME IN A TWO MONTHS. THE EARTH FEELS VERY FAR AWAY. EVERYTHING HAPPENING ON EARTH FEELS FAR AWAY, TOO. I HAVE AMAZING WI-FI BECAUSE MISSION CONTROL IS NICE TO ME IN VERY SPECIFIC WAYS, BUT I DON’T REALLY WATCH THE NEWS. I DON’T DO SOCIAL MEDIA. THEY HAVE SOMEONE IMPERSONATING ME ON IN PRESS RELEASES. I DON’T WANT ATTENTION. THIS IS JUST MY JOB. I’M GOOD AT IT AND I HAVE THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE FOR IT AND IT’S IMPORTANT WORK, SO IT’S WHAT I DO. I DON’T NEED PEOPLE TO PAT MY HEAD AND TELL ME I’M DOING GREAT WORK OR WHATEVER. I’D RATHER JERK MYSELF OFF THAN HAVE NEWSCASTERS DO IT FOR ME. I MEAN, IDEALLY [Y] WOULD BE JERKING ME OFF BUT THERE’S THAT WHOLE ‘DISTANT DEPTHS OF SPACE’ THING GOING ON. 

 

09/03/- -, 1942  
FINAL SPECIMEN (9) EXPERIENCED CATASTROPHIC FAILURE AT 1832 TODAY. IT’S PAST REPORTING TIME SO I’M GOING TO OFFICIALLY TELL MISSION CONTROL TOMORROW AT THE STANDARD TIME. [Y] CALLED AT 1900, THOUGH, SO HE HAS BEEN INFORMED.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: [Y] WAS REALLY TERSE AGAIN. IT WAS LIKE BACK IN MAY, WHEN HE WAS SUPER OBSESSED WITH HOW EVERYTHING WAS GOING AND HE HAD NO SENSE OF HUMOR AND HE DIDN’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ME EXCEPT WHEN IT CAME TO HIS PRECIOUS PLANTS.

I KNOW WHAT WENT WRONG AND IT WASN’T ANYTHING I COULD HAVE PREVENTED BUT I STILL FEEL BAD. BUT I’M NEVER, EVER TELLING HIM THAT.  
.  
.  
.  
09/04/- -, 1700  
I OFFICIALLY REPORTED LOSS OF FINAL SPECIMEN (9) IN [Y]’S PROJECT.

 

09/04/- -, 2348  
[Y] CALLED TO FURTHER DISCUSS FINAL SPECIMEN (9).

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: HE APOLOGIZED. HE TRIED TO EXPLAIN HIS SITUATION SOME MORE BUT I TOLD HIM THAT IF HE REALLY WANTED TO APOLOGIZE HE SHOULD TAKE HIS SHIRT OFF AND LET ME TAKE SCREENSHOTS. HE YANKED HIS SHEETS ALL THE WAY UP TO HIS CHIN AND FREAKED OUT. AS EXPECTED, [Y] IS A WEIRD GRANDPA WHO DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO ACCESS THE CAMERA FUNCTION. HE WAS SPUTTERY AND HORRIFIED FOR LIKE TEN MINUTES BUT HE DIDN’T HANG UP AND EVENTUALLY THE SHEET CAME DOWN AND WE TALKED ABOUT OTHER STUFF. HE STOPS HIMSELF PICKING HIS NOSE NOW, THOUGH.

I DON’T KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THE FACT THAT HE KNOWS. HE’S STILL WILLING TO TALK TO ME, SO THAT’S GOOD.

 

 

 

 

Yamato’s finger hovered over the ‘call’ button on his tablet. 

It was the time he usually called Kakashi. He had started doing it at a consistent time in the mornings because it helped Kakashi wake up in the dark, strange depths of space, but now he felt decidedly weird about it. Now he knew that he’d been on display for the past four months, while he had never even seen a picture of Kakashi below the eyes. This seemed unfair. 

He sighed and hit ‘call.’

A volume bar appeared along the edge of the screen. It shot up whenever Kakashi spoke, visually depicting his speech cadence. “Hey, Yamato.”

“Pilot Hatake,” Yamato said. He felt hyperaware of his body movements and tried not to show it.

“Told you to call me Kakashi,” Kakashi said. He always said that. Yamato thought of him as Kakashi by now but calling him by his full title felt right. Yamato was always worried he’d slip up in front of the people at mission control and say something to indicate that he’d been talking with Kakashi outside of work hours. It was better to stay in the habit of saying ‘Pilot Hatake.’

“How are you?” Yamato asked.

“Can’t complain,” Kakashi said. The transmission was remarkably clear considering the distance and the fact that it was a hacked connection. Kakashi sounded tired.

“You sound tired,” Yamato said.

“Eh,” Kakashi said. A verbal shrug.

“Are you not sleeping again?” Yamato asked.

“Not today,” Kakashi said.

“Perhaps you could work out more?” Yamato offered. “Exercise is a good way to exhaust yourself.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Kakashi said. “I’m working out for five hours a day at this point, though.”

Yamato tried to picture having that much time to waste at the gym. “That’s. That’s a lot.”

“Yeah. Do you work out?” Kakashi asked. “You look like you work out.”

Yamato snorted, feeling a blush steal up his cheeks. “I do fieldwork four days a week.”

“Is that exercise?” Kakashi asked. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means I hike to remote locations to collect data on samples I’ve planted,” Yamato said. “I have to camp out there at the end of October.”

“You go camping?” Kakashi said.

“Yes. Do you?”

“Yeah,” Kakashi said. “I mean, when I’m not hurtling through space. I go hang out in the woods for a while every now and then.”

“I like it,” Yamato said. “It’s peaceful.”

“Yeah,” Kakashi agreed. They shared a moment of silence. The voice bar remained flat, in the green zone. Then it bumped up as Kakashi asked, “Hey, did I weird you out the other day?”

“Weird me out?” Yamato asked.

“Cuz I can see you and you can’t see me?”

“Oh.” Yamato mentally checked that his face was the calm mask he wore when he was around other people. “It was just surprising.”

“You seemed pretty freaked.”

“I was…surprised.”

“Yeah, you said that. But you screamed like I’d been peeping on you in the shower,” Kakashi said. “Which I haven’t done because you don’t bring your tablet into the bathroom.”

“I couldn’t shower while talking to you,” Yamato said, suppressing a smile.

“You could try,” Kakashi said.

Yamato blinked. “It’s inadvisable to get electronics wet.”

“Don’t I know it,” Kakashi said. He sounded disproportionately put out.

Yamato frowned. “Have you ruined a tablet by showering with it?”

“No,” Kakashi sighed in a buzz of static. “I just have to be really careful with where all my bodily fluids go while I’m in zero G.”

“Oh. I didn’t think about that.”

“Yeah, no one does until suddenly you have to be careful where you jizz.”

Yamato coughed. “Ah.”

“You know they actually warn you about in astronaut school to be careful about where your fluids end up? It’s totally different when you’re living it, though.”

“I’d imagine.”

“ _Are_ you imagining?” Kakashi said, sounding sincerely interested.

“I.” Yamato coughed again. “I’m not sure what we’re talking about anymore.”

“Can you picture me jerking it in zero G?” Kakashi said. His tone was matter-of-fact, as if Yamato had simply lost track of the conversation and Kakashi was helping him find his way again.

“I don’t know what you look like,” was all Yamato could think to say.

Kakashi let out a bark of laugher that threw the volume meter into red. “Ha! Holy shit, you’re right! All those photo shoots and yet that PR rep— Okay, give me your email. _Private_ email.”

Yamato opened his mouth, then closed it. He opened it again to spell out his email address.

“M’kay, consider whatever shows up in your inbox to be private correspondence,” Kakashi said. “No selling it to tabloids. I don’t want the public after my hot ass.”

Yamato suppressed a smile. “Please don’t send me dick pics.” 

The volume bar was frozen at zero for a moment. “Why not?”

Yamato blinked. “Oh. Can I just get some pictures of your face or, uh, or something?”

“Well, I was definitely going to send you pictures of _something_ , but—”

“More than just dick pics, then,” Yamato said, laughing. “I’m curious what it looks like in that shuttle now that you’ve been there for, what is it? Four months?”

“Yeah,” Kakashi said after a moment. “Four months.” He sounded tired again.

“Have you picked up any new television shows since we last talked?” Yamato asked, trying to make his tone a bit teasing. It had been less than twelve hours since their last conversation.

“No,” Kakashi said.

 _I am so bad at flirting_ , Yamato thought. “Okay,” he said aloud. “Um.”

“So you don’t want to see me naked,” Kakashi said, voice chillier than normal. “You do want to see my space prison—that’s what I call this spaceship, by the way. Space prison.”

“I, I didn’t say I didn’t want— I just want a _variety_ ,” Yamato sputtered. “I have no idea what you look like or where you are! You’ve seen me and my room and, and, I don’t know what else but _something_ probably. I’m just curious!”

The volume bar was flat at zero. Then, “So you won’t report me for nudes.”

“No,” Yamato said. He could feel the blush rising again.

“Excellent,” Kakashi said. He sounded the way he did when he was reporting to Chief Tsunade, his tone casual, as if he were tossing words away. “Expect a sexy inbox soon.”

“Promise me at least _one_ picture that is _just_ above the neck,” Yamato sighed.

“Like a passport photo?” Kakashi said.

“No!” Yamato said, and then he laughed. He couldn’t picture Kakashi’s face in front of the blue screen, but he could picture a scarf with a hat on top of it and Kakashi’s voice coming out of the clothing heap: _I’m a fucking astronaut, just take the damn picture and let me go to space already._

“I’ll put something through decent filters,” Kakashi said. 

“Sure,” Yamato said, tucking his smile away with his hand. “I look forward to it.”

“You’re too cute, Yamato,” Kakashi said. “Talk to you later.” And the volume bar disappeared. Yamato was left staring at the tablet he had balanced on his knees, tomato-red and probably smiling like a fool.

 

 

 

 

09/30/- -, 0021  
I SET UP THE HUBBLE-QUALITY CAMERA (YEAH, THE GUY WHO’S RUNNING THIS PARTICULAR EXPERIMENT KEEPS INSISTING THAT HE’S DOING IT BETTER THAN HUBBLE BUT WHATEVER, SAI, ART DOESN’T EXIST IN A VOID WOOPS THIS WAS UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY). I WILL BE RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS AND TESTING FILTERS PRIOR TO INFORMING [S] OF HIS CAMERA’S OPERATIONAL STATUS. I SHOULD HAVE SOMETHING TO REPORT TODAY.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: [Y] HASN’T MENTIONED PLANTS ONCE SINCE I SENT HIM PHOTOS. LATE-NIGHT PHONE CALLS ARE GETTING /VERY/ LONG THESE DAYS.  
.  
.  
.  
10/14/- -, 0746  
DECELERATION PROCEDURES ARE A GO.

[Y] CALLED TO CHECK IN ON EXPERIMENT. I NOTIFIED HIM OF CHANGES IN THREE (3) AND SIX (6) AS WELL AS THE FAILURE OF FOUR (4). HARVESTING HAS TO WAIT UNTIL I’M HEADING BACK, OBVIOUSLY, BUT HE WAS PRETTY PISSY ABOUT IT NONETHELESS.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: THE GRANTS AREN’T GOING WELL FOR HIM. HE DOESN’T TELL ME MUCH BECAUSE HE SAYS IT’S BORING AND IT TOTALLY IS, BUT HE’S NOT SLEEPING WELL AND HE’S UP ALL THE TIME DEALING WITH NARUTO. HE ASKED IF WE WERE DATING. I SAID I WASN’T SEEING ANYONE ELSE AND HE LAUGHED. HE SHOULD PROBABLY SEE SOMEONE ELSE, THOUGH. I’M IN SPACE. THIS IS AS LONG-DISTANCE AS IT’LL GET UNTIL LIGHT-SPEED BECOMES COMMONPLACE (NARUTO’S DAD WAS WORKING ON IT BUT HE WAS A FUCKING GENIUS AND HIS KID CAN’T EVEN SOLVE FOR X, SO IT’LL BE A WHILE BEFORE WE HIT THAT MILESTONE). [Y] NEEDS SOMEONE RIGHT NOW. IT CAN’T BE HEALTHY TO BE COOPED UP ALONE THAT MUCH.  
WHEN THERE ARE OTHER OPTIONS, I MEAN.  
.  
.  
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10/27/- -, 0413  
DECELERATION IS COMPLETE. THE SHIP IS AS A COMPLETE STANDSTILL, APART FROM THE HURTLING-THROUGH-SPACE-DUE-TO-ENTROPY-AND-ORBITS THING. AFTER A DAY TO REFUEL THE ENGINES FOR THE FIRST BIG PUSH, I WILL BEGIN ACCELERATION BACK TO EARTH.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: [Y] REMINDED ME HE’S GOTTA GO CAMPING IN TWO DAYS TO CHECK ON HIS PLANTS. I WON’T BE HEARING FROM HIM FOR A WEEK. MORE, IF HE GETS STUCK OUT THERE IN THE WILDS. IT’S A PRETTY MILD CLIMATE WHERE HE’S GOT ALL HIS SPECIMENS BUT STILL, FREAK ACCIDENTS HAPPEN. I HAVE TO REMIND MYSELF THAT WEATHER IS, IN FACT, A THING THAT I’LL SUFFER WHEN I’M BACK. I’M STILL OVER SIX MONTHS AWAY FROM RAIN AND SUN AND FOG AND HAIL AND ALL THAT SHIT. IT’S GOING TO BE A RELIEF. I THINK ABOUT THUNDERSTORMS SOME DAYS. I SPEND WHOLE DAYS THINKING ABOUT THUNDERSTORMS AS I GO THROUGH ROUTINE MAINTENANCE. IS THAT WEIRD? I’M NOT TELLING [Y], THAT’S FOR SURE.  
.  
.  
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10/31/- -, 1748  
I WISHED MISSION CONTROL A HAPPY HALLOWEEN. I HAD NOTHING TO REPORT ON THE VARIOUS EXPERIMENTS BUT [S] WAS AT THE BRIEFING DRESSED LIKE A HIGH-CLASS RENT BOY. I THINK THAT’S JUST HOW HE LOOKS, THOUGH. HE WAS PRETTY DEADPAN THE WHOLE TIME BUT HE DID THANK ME FOR THE PICTURES I HELPED HIM GET.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: FIRST TIME [Y] HASN’T CALLED ME AT THE USUAL TIMES (LAST NIGHT AND THIS MORNING). HE DID EMAIL ME FOOTAGE OF THE MOST AWKWARD STRIPTEASE I HAVE EVER SEEN, TO BE OPENED AFTER HE LEFT. I LAUGHED SO HARD I HAD TO USE ONE OF MY PRECIOUS TISSUES TO SOAK UP TEARS. IT WAS SO BAD. I’M KIND OF PROUD HE TOOK MY SUGGESTION OF ‘POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME’—IT’S THE BEST STRIPPER SONG. NO COMPETITION. I DO WISH HE’D REMEMBERED THAT HALLOWEEN WAS HAPPENING WHILE HE WAS OUT POKING MOSS OR WHATEVER. SEEING [Y] IN COSTUME WOULD HAVE BEEN A DELIGHT.  
.  
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.  
11/06/- -, 0002  
[Y] CALLED TO CHECK IN ON EXPERIMENT. I NOTIFIED HIM OF CHANGES IN ONE (1), THREE (3), FIVE (5), AND EIGHT (8). HE WAS DISAPPOINTED WITH ALL RESULTS BESIDES SPECIMEN THREE (3), WHICH HE FOUND EXTREMELY EXCITING.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER AND THE PHONE SEX BETTER. I’M NOT SURE IF IT WAS RELATED TO SPECIMEN THREE OR NOT BUT WHEN I ASKED HE GOT ALL RED AND SPUTTERY. WHICH IS FUN.  
.  
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.  
12/23/- -, 1224  
[S]’S CAMERA HAS EXPERIENCED EXCESSIVE LIGHT DAMAGE AND SYSTEMS FAILURE. I’LL BE CALLING IT IN TONIGHT BUT AS OF 1218, IT HAS BEEN SHUT DOWN. WHILE THE EXPERIMENTAL COATING MAY HAVE GOTTEN US NEW ACCESS TO THE DEPTHS OF WHATEVER GALAXY, IT FRIED THE LENS COMPLETELY. THE WEIRD ROBOT CAMERA IS OFFICIALLY BLIND.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO GET [Y] FOR CHRISTMAS. HE SAID NO PRESENTS AND I AGREE WITH THAT BUT I KEEP THINKING ABOUT IT. I WONDER HOW HE FEELS ABOUT VINTAGE PORNOGRAPHY (WHICH I COULD EASILY EMAIL HIM). THIS IS A STUPID HOLIDAY AND I HATE IT. 

FUCK IT, I’M GOING TO EMAIL A FLORIST AND SEND HIM A GODDAMN TREE IN A BUCKET BECAUSE HE DOESN’T BELIEVE IN CUTTING DOWN TREES BUT CHRISTMAS ISN’T CHRISTMAS UNLESS EVERYTHING SMELLS LIKE PINE. SOMEONE BETTER BE WILLING TO SHIP A MAN A TREE FROM ANOTHER MAN WHO IS IN SPACE.  
.  
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01/01/- -, 0001  
I BROKE INTO THE PATHETIC AMOUNT OF BOOZE I WAS ALLOWED TO TAKE ON THIS TRIP (A SIX PACK). I AM NOT DRUNK. I AM MAD ABOUT THIS FACT. HAPPY NEW YEAR, I’M FIVE MONTHS FROM GETTING BACK TO EARTH.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: I ASKED [Y] TO GET DRUNK FOR ME AND HE DID. ALL THAT HAPPENS IS THAT HE TURNS PINK AND HE THINKS ABOUT HIS WORDS VERY CAREFULLY. IT WASN’T VERY INTERESTING. IT /WAS/ INTERESTING WATCHING HIM ALL BUT CHUG THREE BEERS AND TAKE TWO TEQUILA SHOTS. THE THIRD TEQUILA SHOT I ASKED HIM TO DO A BODY SHOT OFF HIMSELF AND IT SPILLED IN HIS BED AND HE LAUGHED FOR A FULL MINUTE. I WISH I COULD TAKE VIDEO OF HIM LAUGHING. SCREENSHOTS DON’T DO IT JUSTICE.

 

 

 

 

Yamato barely finished lighting the collection of candles arranged on his headboard when the volume bar appeared, signaling that Kakashi had picked up the other end of the call.

The volume bar didn’t move for a long moment. Then, “Hey.”

“Hello,” Yamato said. “Um. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Same to you,” Kakashi said. 

“You said you had something planned?” Yamato said.

“I did,” Kakashi said.

Yamato was starting to feel a bit lightheaded because of how nervous he was. Even though he knew it was impossible, he wondered if somehow all of his coworkers were staring at the image of him sitting cross-legged on his bed, candle-lit and naked. He shifted uncomfortably. “Well?”

“I’m getting a good look at your plan first,” Kakashi said.

Yamato hoped the candlelight made things dim enough that Kakashi couldn’t see how badly he was blushing. “Yes. Well.”

“I like this plan,” Kakashi said. “A little more shadowy than I’d like but I can see why it would work from an artistic standpoint. It’s very risque.”

Yamato coughed. “Yes. Well.”

“Wanna see my plan?” Kakashi said.

“Yes.”

The volume bar vanished. Yamato blinked. It took three of Yamato’s too-quick heartbeats before a box appeared onscreen. It was bright and heavily pixilated for a moment, but it resolved into the pale, disinterested face that had been the subject of some _extremely_ risque photography and then sent to Yamato via email five months ago. 

Millions of miles away, Kakashi was propping his chin up on one hand. He was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and had his fingers curled over his mouth, hiding it from view. As Yamato watched, Kakashi raised his free hand into the frame and waggled his fingers.

“Hi,” Kakashi said.

The sound was laggy. There were pauses and then sudden jumps in movement as the signal fought its way across the void. The lighting in the space station bordered on hallway fluorescents, whiting out the already bleached pilot. Nothing about his attitude or the way he was dressed suggested he’d planned on a classy Valentine’s day. 

Yamato pinched the bridge of his nose to hide the fact that he kind of wanted to cry. This was the best Valentine’s gift he could have received under the circumstances. After months of sarcasm, heavy breathing, intense dirty talk, and very few personal details, he was finally seeing this man in-person and in real time.

Still kneading the skin between his eyes, Yamato took a deep breath to steady his voice and said, “Are you wearing pants right now?”

“I haven’t worn pants in months,” Kakashi said calmly.

“You’re terrible,” Yamato said.

“Whereas _you_ seem to be in quite the amorous mood,” Kakashi said.

“Are the lights on like that all the time?” Yamato asked, squinting at the screen. Everything was either metal or covered with white.

Kakashi shrugged. “In this area, yeah. I turned them off permanently in the space where I sleep. I probably shouldn’t have fucked with the lighting controls as much as I did but I was making this space mine at the beginning, so.”

“I see,” Yamato said. “Could you give me a tour?”

Kakashi’s eyebrows drew together, forehead wrinkles visible even on such a pixelated image. “What?”

“Could you describe this room to me?” Yamato said. “And how the ship fits together. All of it. I want to know what it’s like where you are.”

Kakashi was silent for a moment. His mouth was still covered and he was still frowning. Yamato was about to repeat his question, sure the computer had frozen, when Kakashi dropped his hands to the counter. “You do realize we could be watching each other masturbate right now, yeah?”

Yamato winced. “Ah, yes. But—”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Kakashi said, and then he pushed himself away from the screen and floated up. 

He was a boxer-briefs man, Yamato noted. It made sense, considering how thin he was. Boxers would probably be like a tent around each leg.

“So this is the communications room,” Kakashi began.

 

 

 

 

03/26/- -, 1748  
I JUST FINISHED REPORTING ON THE STATUS OF [Y]’S THIRD (3) SPECIMEN AS WELL AS MY CURRENT VELOCITY. I AM ON TRACK AND SHOULD BE BACK ON EARTH IN A BIT OVER A MONTH.

UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: [Y] HAS AN EMERGENCY CAMPING TRIP TO TAKE SO HE’LL BE GONE FOR ANOTHER WEEK, MAYBE MORE. HIS GRANTS KEEP FALLING THROUGH BUT HE’S STILL DRAGGING DATA OUT OF HIS PLANTS. I DON’T KNOW HOW HE STAYS SO FOCUSED ON THAT ECO SHIT. IT’S COOL AND ALL BUT IT SOUNDS STRESSFUL. ACADEMIA IS A SHITTY PLACE TO WORK.  
.  
.  
.  
03/30/- -, 0307  
UNNECESSARY COMMENTARY: CAN’T SLEEP. MY SCHEDULE IS SO OFF RIGHT NOW. HE’S BEEN GONE THREE DAYS AND I CAN’T KEEP IT TOGETHER. FOR THE FUTURE, I’M GOING TO RECOMMEND MORE REPORTS, JUST FOR PILOT SANITY. I’LL BE ALL RIGHT BUT ANYONE ELSE (AND ANYONE WHO DIDN’T HAVE SOMEONE LIKE [Y] BOTHERING THEM) WOULD HAVE LOST THEIR MIND IN THE FIRST FEW MONTHS. THE SOLITUDE IS ALL RIGHT FOR ME, IT’S THE LACK OF STRUCTURE. I HAVE MY MISSION BUT IT’S NOT A LOT OF WORK. I DON’T HAVE TO EXPEND A TON OF BRAINPOWER FOR IT. I NEED MORE DISTRACTIONS. I’D LIKE TO BE PLANNING THINGS, STRATEGIZING. I PLAY SO MUCH INTERNET CHESS. SINCE I’M RUNNING LOWER ON TISSUES THAN I’D LIKE, I’VE BEEN SPENDING EVEN MORE TIME PLAYING CHESS AGAINST PEOPLE ONLINE. I KEEP LOSING TO SOME ASSHOLE WITH A DEER ICON.  
.  
.  
.  
04/01/- -, 0549  
[TRANSCRIPTION OF VOCALIZATION:] IT FINALLY HAPPENED. I GOT SICK. THREW UP TWICE AND HAD TO VACUUM IT UP, WHICH IS DISGUSTING. I’M HOOKED INTO BED DICTATING THIS TO THE ONBOARD COMPUTER. I WAS CHUGGING GATORADE BUT IT KEPT COMING UP. I CAN’T SEEM TO FALL ASLEEP. I HAVE A MILD FEVER. THE NAUSEA’S THE BAD THING. I’LL TRY TO GET WELL ENOUGH TO REPORT IN AT THE USUAL TIME.

 

04/01/- -, 1434  
[TRANSCRIPTION OF VOCALIZATION:] WHAT’S TIME [QUESTIONING TONE]. HAVE TO REPORT. [INCOHERENT] DARK TO FINE CLOCK IN HIT GLOW BUTTON. COMPUTER, WHAT TIME IT IS [QUESTIONING TONE]. [RESPONDED WITH ‘FOURTEEN THIRTY FOUR’] SHIT.

 

04/01/- -, 1638  
[TRANSCRIPTION OF VOCALIZATION:] COMPUTER WHAT TIME ZIT [QUESTIONING TONE]. TELL ME. WHEN THEY CALL.

 

04/01/- -, 1758  
[TRANSCRIPTION OF VOCALIZATION:] TOO LOUD. COMPUTER, TURN OFF. [COMPLIED WITH ORDER.]

 

04/01/- -, 1908  
[MEDICAL EMERGENCY DECLARED. MONITORING VITALS REMOTELY. RECORDING ACTIVITY. SUBJECT IS IN A SEMI-CONSCIOUS STATE AND OCCASIONALLY MUMBLES ABOUT HOW HE IS CHILLED. LOWERING THE TEMPERATURE OF THIS VESSEL IN ORDER TO BRING DOWN HIS INTERNAL TEMPERATURE.]

 

04/01/- -, 1943  
[MEDICAL EMERGENCY STILL IN EFFECT. CONTINUING TO MONITOR VITALS REMOTELY AND RECORD ACTIVITY. FEVER CONTINUES. SUBJECT MOVES IN HIS SLEEP BUT IS NOT A DANGER TO HIMSELF AS HE STRAPPED HIMSELF IN EFFECTIVELY.]

 

04/01/- -, 2103  
[MEDICAL EMERGENCY STILL IN EFFECT. CONTINUING TO MONITOR VITALS REMOTELY AND RECORD ACTIVITY. FEVER CONTINUES. SUBJECT IS SWALLOWING WITH GREATER FREQUENCY AND BREATHING WITH AN OPEN MOUTH. HIGH PROBABILITY OF THIRST. DEPLOYING EMERGENCY WATER TO BEDSIDE CORNER AND INITIATING ALARM SEQUENCE TO ENCOURAGE SUBJECT TO DRINK.]

 

04/01/- -, 2132  
[MEDICAL EMERGENCY STILL IN EFFECT. CONTINUING TO MONITOR VITALS REMOTELY AND RECORD ACTIVITY. FEVER CONTINUES. SUBJECT HAS INGESTED FLUIDS.]

 

04/01/- -, 2308  
[MEDICAL EMERGENCY STILL IN EFFECT. CONTINUING TO MONITOR VITALS REMOTELY AND RECORD ACTIVITY. FEVER HAS BROKEN. SUBJECT NO LONGER MOVES IN HIS SLEEP OR PRESENTS INDICATIONS OF THIRST.]  
.  
.  
.  
04/02/- -, 0800  
[MEDICAL EMERGENCY NO LONGER IN EFFECT.]

 

04/02/- -, 1802  
I REPORTED IN. I STILL DON’T FEEL GREAT BUT I DON’T HAVE A FEVER AND I CAN KEEP DOWN CRACKERS AND WATER (THE CRACKERS ARE INCREDIBLY STALE). I THINK I’M OUT OF THE WOODS. OF FUCKING COURSE THIS HAPPENS A MONTH BEFORE I GET BACK. HOW DO GERMS EVEN SURVIVE THE VACUUM OF SPACE? I BLAME INSOMNIA. I’M GOING BACK TO SLEEP.  
.  
.  
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04/03/- -, 0347  
I JUST REALIZED, I MISSED PICKING UP [Y]’S FIRST SPECIMEN. COMPLETELY BLEW PAST IT WHILE I WAS BUSY THROWING UP. I BET THAT WAS THE LOUD ALARM NOISE THAT WOULDN’T TURN OFF UNTIL I TOLD THE COMPUTER TO SHUT IT DOWN. I HAVE ONE JOB AND IT’S TO MONITOR THE EXPERIMENTS AND COLLECT DATA AND I DIDN’T DO IT.

 

 

 

 

“But you’re okay now?” Yamato said again.

“Yes,” Kakashi sighed. He had a dark blue blanket wrapped around most of him. It was like talking to a lump of dark stone—HAL came to mind. The shadow of the blanket hid any sliver of his face from view. He might as well be a volume bar again, but Yamato kept squinting, trying to get a better sense of how he was feeling based on what he looked like.

“I said I’m fine,” Kakashi snapped. “I can see you staring at me, stop it.”

“Why the blanket, if you’re feeling better?” Yamato said.

“I don’t have enough to make a fort,” Kakashi said. “This is a blanket fort for one. Highly exclusive. Keep talking about this and you won’t be invited.”

Yamato smiled. “I get to see you in person soon.”

The blanket fort shrank as Kakashi tucked the cloth more tightly around himself. “Yeah.”

“What are you going to do first when you get back to earth?” Yamato asked.

“Collapse and have to be carried off the ship,” Kakashi said.

“You’ve been working out so that you can avoid the muscle atrophy associated with extended time spent in zero gravity,” Yamato said. “You won’t collapse. Are you going to eat particular food? Call someone?”

“Are you fishing for affection?” Kakashi said. “Trying to get a two-minute bathroom BJ out of this before the cameras take me away for a million years?”

“No,” Yamato said with a sigh. “I just want to know. I suppose I’m curious if you’ll keep this going with me, or. Well. You’ll have options again. Successful astronauts are probably a big hit with people in bars.”

“You really think I’m going to— Whatever. Not the point. I have to tell you something.”

Yamato smoothed his face to neutral. “All right.”

The blanket slid down to Kakashi’s shoulders. His eyes looked darker, deeper set. He looked tired and ill, and solemn. He often looked serious when he was telling an outrageous joke, but this felt like the kind of serious that Yamato should worry about. He sat up straighter against his headboard.

“I didn’t collect sample number one,” Kakashi said.

Yamato waited.

“…So,” Kakashi said.

“Is that all?” Yamato asked.

“Yes?” Kakashi was starting to frown again.

“All right. Um. So. You never actually answered if this was just a long-distance phone sex fling or not, so if we could resolve—”

“I fucked up your data,” Kakashi said, enunciating clearly. “I fucked it up. Aren’t you mad?”

“Not… particularly?” Yamato said. “Chief Tsunade updated me on your illness earlier. You had a valid reason to miss it. And I have the other specimens to go off of. There’s a reason I put nine of them out there. I’m just glad you’re feeling better.”

“So you knew,” Kakashi said.

“Yes,” Yamato said.

“And you still want to hang out after I get out of this space prison.”

“Yes.”

“…We’re going to a bar and I’m getting you drunk again,” Kakashi said. “Then we’re both taking a week off and I’m going to fuck you and order a lot of pizza and keep fucking you.”

Yamato blinked. “Well then. All right.”

 

 

 

 

The rocket touched down without incident. It was a textbook landing, flawless. Pilot Hatake walked out of the spaceship under his own power, shook Chief Tsunade’s hand with sunglasses on and a scarf pulled up over his face, waved to the right cameras, rattled off a short speech, and then ducked down and hopped off the platform and onto the tarmac.

The scientists behind the experiments Pilot Hatake had been standing off to one side. There was a young man with a faint smile and work-inappropriate attire; a blonde teen in a tracksuit who was way too enthusiastic about having his own picture taken; and a stoic-looking man, his button-down tucked into his jeans and a pair of hiking sandals worn over socks. The third man was the nerdiest-looking of the bunch and incredibly unphotogenic. According to interview notes, he was some major environmentalist pushing for ecology in space or something like that. Photographers kept him half out of the frame whenever they took pictures of the scientists. 

The press photographers all gasped when Pilot Hatake kissed that environmentalist. Much to their dismay, he used the old trick of raising a middle finger to keep the cameras at bay. They couldn’t sell obscene gestures to tabloids. All they could do was crop the bird out of frame and publish the ridiculous amount of grab-ass going on during the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love space but I don’t always know how space works. I don’t know how technology works in space. I don’t know how hacking works. I can work my computer camera. My science is sad but please know that I regret the sad science. 
> 
> For the spaceship/space prison, picture some crossover between the _Interstellar_ spaceship and _Serenity_ if you would.
> 
> Introspective Kakashi always worries me because of his shit childhood, but there’s not a lot else he can do in space and he’s shown he’s prone to thinking too much, so. At least his childhood was definitively less shit because there's no ninja wars in this 'verse.


	7. Special Delivery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is short and a humorous mess. Something better will be up this weekend, this just took me half an hour and I made myself laugh so. Don't question why these particular kids are here, they just are.
> 
> Also, y'all are so sweet in the comments! Thank you! I feel weird responding to everyone with 'thank you' so I don't really do it, but I read every comment and my heart glows, it's very nice. You're all very nice. Feel free to ask questions down there, I respond to questions more than kindness. I totally blush and smile every time you say a nice thing though, so this is me saying thanks.

Yamato glared at the order slip. He scraped a hand through his hair, then looked up from the scrap of paper and said, “Okay, who took this order?”

“Me!” Naruto called.

“He always gets the phone first,” Neji said. “We can’t stop him.”

“Could you read me what this says?” Yamato asked, holding the slip out.

Naruto shuffled over and squinted at his own handwriting. “Uhhh it’s a large original crust with—”

“Under special requests,” Yamato said.

Naruto squinted even harder. “Uhhh, ‘send your cutest delivery boy.’ And then he hung up. It was a guy, Mister Yamato!” Naruto added, as if this was something scandalous.

“This is bullshit,” Yamato muttered to himself.

Naruto stared. “A guy,” he stage-whispered.

“Yes, I heard you,” Yamato said.

“Do you think he was, yanno.” 

Yamato stared. His large eyes were blank and empty. 

“…Gay?” Naruto squeaked.

“I think it would be a safe bet, yes,” Yamato said. He looked around the kitchen of the pizza joint, a faint line between his brows. “All right. Sai has the night off, so who else could we send?”

“We’re gonna do it?” Naruto wheezed, horrified. “But, but, but, that’s gay!”

“Ohhhh my god,” Neji groaned. He stopped slicing peppers to put his head on the counter. “Really? In this day and age?”

“Dude, who gives a shit?” Kiba said from the meat preparation counter. He was grating pepperoni into thin discs.

Temari popped her head around the corner. “You homophobic, Naruto? Such hypocrisy.”

“Back to the front,” Yamato ordered her. “Naruto, don’t be homophobic.”

“But—”

“Go knead more pizza dough,” Yamato said. Naruto slumped off, head tucked between his shoulders.

“You should go, sir,” Neji said.

Yamato blinked. “What?”

“If that’s the request, you should go,” Neji repeated. “I wouldn’t describe myself as 'cute,' I’m more 'beautiful.' And as you said, Sai isn’t working tonight; that leaves you.”

Yamato’s mouth thinned. “I’m flattered,” he said, voice flat.

Neji shrugged and flicked his hair behind his shoulder. “It’s just a fact.”

“Don’t wave your hair over the cheese,” Yamato said. “Put your hairnet back on. I’m the manager here, not a delivery boy. And there are more men working here than just me.”

Neji gave a long-suffering sigh. “You have to have very specific taste to find Kiba attractive.”

“Like what?!” Kiba asked, although it sounded more like ‘lie 'wa?’ due to all the pepperonis he’d crammed in his mouth. 

Neji straightened his hairnet. “Well, really you’d need to have brain damage.”

Because his mouth was still full of pepperoni, all Kiba could do was flip Neji off.

“The guy's pizza is ready,” Shikamaru yawned from where he was lounging in the corner, watching the oven. He waved a hand to the cardboard box. “If it takes more than thirty minutes to get to him it’s free, don’t forget.”

Yamato threw up his hands. “Fine. I’m taking it. Temari’s in charge until I get back.” Yamato stomped out the door with the pizza warmer balanced on his shoulder.

“I don’t see why I couldn’t have gone,” Shino said as he added another folded box to the stack he’d been building. “Though I suppose it’s because you all forgot about me.”

“Don’t mope, Shino,” Naruto called. He pounded pizza crust with more enthusiasm than skill, so his face was covered in flour. “The guy sounded too old for us. Mister Yamato’s more his speed.”

“Good thing he can’t hear you,” Temari said as she poked her head around the corner again. She pointed at Shikamaru and crooked her finger. “You. Come help out in front.”

“No one’s come in for ten minutes,” Shikamaru whined, but he moved to the front. His frown seemed sharper than usual and he glared into the middle distance with more anger than annoyance. It was a subtle change, but Temari noticed.

She stepped next to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Hey. You didn’t get picked because you’re so pasty and clammy.”

Shikamaru's death glare was ineffective against her laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue: Yamato brought that pizza over and Kakashi didn't tip and Yamato was like "I am coming back here later and I am getting that tip" and Kakashi stared at him until Yamato realized he should probably watch his phrasing.
> 
> Uhhhh a lot of the dialogue was taken verbatim from a text my friend sent me, particularly Neji being a dick to Kiba. Neji is the prettiest and he knows it.
> 
> Sort of...vaguely...the end was inspired by: http://jazzie560s-art.tumblr.com/post/108608841950/idk-no-one-asked-for-this


	8. An Immodest Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Craigslist roommates and restaurant shenanigans.

Yamato had to admit that while Kakashi was an unusual roommate, at least he hadn’t lied on the Craigslist ad. The house was decently tidy (it counted as clean when the person living there didn’t own anything nonessential) with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a spacious kitchen and living room area, and a backyard for all the service dogs Kakashi trained. The dogs were housebroken and quiet. Kakashi was far less well-trained. He had admitted that he wasn’t tidy and that he lacked any cooking skills in the posting, but then Yamato went to the grocery store with him in his rattletrap pickup and watched him purchase only dog food, toilet paper, a case of Gatorade, and potato chips. 

Yamato had looked at the neat collection of vegetables in front of him, tied into their plastic bags with a slipknot he could easily undo once they were back at the house. He had looked back at the haphazard pile of bunk items in front of Kakashi. In that moment, he had experienced a vision of what his future was going to hold and it was going to involve feeding the bored-looking man ahead of him in line.

What was utterly frustrating was the fact that Kakashi was the kind of lean you only got from the genetics lottery and serious long-distance running. He’d vanish for hours at a time, all of his dogs in tow, and then he’d return covered in sweat and mud. He wouldn’t even shower before collapsing bonelessly on the couch and falling asleep to the background noise of telenovelas.

“How do you feel about soap operas?” had actually been one of his earliest interview questions when Yamato responded to the roommate ad.

“I have no opinion about them,” Yamato had said truthfully. “I prefer nature documentaries.”

“Like about lions killing and eating gazelles and how fish mate for life?” Kakashi asked. He had a scar running from his hairline through one eye. The scarred eye seemed almost dark red compared to the other. Yamato had tried not to stare. 

“No,” Yamato said. “I prefer documentaries about forests.”

Kakashi’s eyes had narrowed. “You are way too into trees. Was the forest ranger thing like a fetish-fulfillment?”

“Fetish in the sense of preoccupation or obsession, yes,” Yamato said sharply. “It is not a sexual thing. I find forests soothing.”

Kakashi nodded, seemingly deep in thought. “I find porn soothing.”

Yamato had cocked his head. “Well. As long as I’m not expected to enjoy it with you.”

“You have any issues with porn?” Kakashi asked. His expression was lazy but his eyes were focused, seeking out Yamato’s answer. This question was important.

“Some,” Yamato said. “Anything illegal, certainly.”

“You all right with gay stuff?”

Yamato shrugged. “I have no objections as long as everyone is consenting adults.”

“You all right with _straight_ stuff?”

“Again,” Yamato had said, “I don’t care as long as I’m not expected to enjoy it with you.”

Kakashi’s mouth twitched in something that could have been a smile. “Mm. I won’t force you to.”

“Good,” Yamato said.

“When can you move in?” Kakashi had asked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamato tip-toed around his new roommate for a few weeks. He didn’t want to jeopardize a living arrangement that was so close to where he worked as a park ranger. It was hard to find a place to live that was close enough for him to hike or bike to his job. He liked the house. He liked all the dogs. He wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about Kakashi yet as a person but he was quietly a fan of how often Kakashi passed out pantsless in the communal living space. The telenovelas and weird hours weren’t that difficult to get used to. Kakashi was a pretty quiet guy.

After a month, Yamato started settling in. His books and DVDs made their way to the bare shelves in the living room. His pots and pans took up the yawning spaces in the kitchen cabinets. Human soap and shampoo appeared in the bathroom, along with a razor (Kakashi didn’t seem capable of growing any facial hair) and a loofah. The toilet paper was two-ply when Yamato bought it. The house started to look lived-in, in Yamato’s opinion. It was mostly his stuff making its way into spaces that had previously been left empty, but Kakashi didn’t object.

He barely spoke at all, actually. He went out with his dogs every day and came back. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays he put on very battered black chinos and slumped out the door with the sleeves of his white-ish dress-shirt rolled up to the elbow. He’d come back a few hours later with paint or glitter in his hair or some crumpled crayon drawings that he’d leave on the coffee table until Yamato either threw them out or hung them on the refrigerator. 

It had been a test, hanging the drawings up. Kakashi didn’t react. He didn’t react when they went in the recycling, either. The man lived his life around a schedule, Yamato decided. He had blinders on and he wouldn’t react to anything if it didn’t directly interfere with him going about his day.

It was somewhat unexpected when, a month and a half after moving in, Yamato came home to find Kakashi sprawled on the couch with his feet resting on a man’s spandex-clad legs and his head on a woman’s lap. There was a half-empty bottle of beer balanced on his stomach. The dogs were scattered around the room, clearly familiar with these people. The woman was carefully braiding tiny clumps of Kakashi’s prematurely-grey hair and the man was roaring at a rugby game playing on the television set.

“Hello?” Yamato said, dropping his backpack on the side-table.

The woman smiled up at him. “Oh, you’re Kakashi’s new roommate!”

“Yep,” Kakashi said.

“A roommate!” the man gasped. His entire face was made up of sparkle. He brushed the bangs of his bowl cut out of his face and beamed. “How wonderful! Rin and I have often worried about our friend’s solitude!”

“You’re making it weird,” Kakashi said. “And I’ve had dogs for years, I don’t know what you’re talking about with this ‘solitude’ thing.”

“Esteemed Roommate,” the man with the bowl cut said, eyebrows writhing with earnest goodwill, “I am Guy. What is your name?”

“Yamato,” Yamato said.

“And I’m Rin,” the woman cut in. “You won’t see us much because we both work in town but we try to drag this asshole out sometimes and if we can’t, we come bug him.” She yanked on her most recently completed braid. “He can’t stay in and re-rewatch _Los ricos también lloran_ forever.”

“I’m sorry you have to meet them,” Kakashi said solemnly.

“Not at all,” Yamato said politely. “I’m always happy to meet new people.” 

“You gonna have people show up out of the blue, too?” Kakashi asked. “Friends, lovers, whatnots? I didn’t think to warn you but we should probably be more prepared about this kind of thing.”

“I don’t know anyone in this town yet,” Yamato said. “I’m a bit busy with my work.” His coworkers were as quiet and focused on the forest as Yamato was. It was nice to be a part of that intensely meditative energy, but it also meant Yamato had made no friends. And here he’d thought Kakashi was in the same boat. Yamato scooped up his backpack and prepared to retreat to his room.

“You should come sit with us,” Rin told him. “Guy loves rugby, you’re gonna be hearing him either way.”

“I would lower my tone for an Esteemed Roommate such as Yamato!” Guy protested.

“Come sit,” Rin said. “There’s a lot of Kakashi to go around. Guy, scootch in and take the butt.”

“It is so bony, Rin,” Guy said, but he did scoot himself under Kakashi’s rear end with a wince. 

“Rude,” Kakashi murmured. He seemed to be impersonating a lap blanket; not even his beer bottle moved, though it teetered for a moment as Guy shifted in place. Kakashi’s feet were left behind, toes wriggling in their once-white socks.

Yamato stepped out of his hiking boots and slowly sat on the couch. Kakashi lifted his feet out of Yamato’s way, then settled them back on Yamato’s lap with a quiet hum of contentment. His heels dug into Yamato’s thigh. He seemed content to simply lie there while Guy gasped and shouted at the television and Rin covered his head with lumpy, wiry braids that stuck straight up.

Yamato was trapped there for the rest of the evening. Three of them sat in silence while the fourth cried, “They’ll never make it beyond the scrum with that attitude!” Yamato was surprised to find that, with Rin there to exchange amused looks with him as Guy’s laments grew louder and louder, it was a nice evening in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Sorry about that,” Kakashi said as he locked the door behind his friends. “They don’t let me say no when they decide to come by. They know I’m not doing anything.”

“It’s fine,” Yamato said. He picked up his backpack again and prepared to retreat into his room once more. He paused for a moment to add, “They’re nice people.”

“Busybodies,” Kakashi corrected.

“Busybodies? Why?”

Kakashi shrugged. “Keep checking in on me.”

“Why would they need to check in on— Is it all right if I ask about that?” Yamato said.

“Yeah, it’s probably standard roommate stuff,” Kakashi said. “Rin and I were in the army together, training for search-and-rescue missions with this other man. Obito. But there was a cave-in during a training exercise. It’s how I got this”—Kakashi tapped the cheek under his scarred, reddish eye—“and Obito died. So I kind of don’t leave the house without my dogs anymore, or unless I’m going somewhere really specific. Rin’s a doctor now. A surgeon. And Guy’s also ex-military but now he’s an ecstatic dance instructor, just so you know.”

“I see,” Yamato said.

“I’m not gonna snap or anything,” Kakashi said. “It’s been years.”

“I didn’t say you were going to snap. But you live on the edge of civilization with a lot of dogs and only two friends,” Yamato said slowly. “And then you suddenly start looking for a roommate.”

Kakashi stared at him. “You make me sound so dangerous.”

Yamato shrugged. “I don’t know if you are or not, but it doesn’t look good.”

“No,” Kakashi said. “It probably doesn’t.”

“Why did you need a roommate suddenly?” Yamato said.

“Rent’s getting higher and I still have to train these dogs up,” Kakashi said. “Part-time tutoring pays me, but not enough. Aaaand I finally burned through my trust fund.”

“Trust fund?” Yamato said.

Kakashi sighed, shuffled back to the couch and sprawled out. Yamato heard him mutter, “It only took me twenty years.” One of his medium-sized dogs, a mutt with what looked like a lot of golden retriever in her, nudged herself under his dangling hand. He scratched her ears.

This didn’t seem like a subject Yamato was going to hear much more about. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

As he changed into sweatpants, Yamato heard the TV turn on, and a great deal of rapid Spanish signaled that it was telenovela time. Then Kakashi must have turned the volume down because he didn’t hear anything else for the rest of the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey, I’m out of food,” Kakashi said when Yamato walked in the door.

“Okay?” Yamato said, toeing off his boots and shrugging out of his jacket. “Um, give me ten minutes to shower and I can go with you to the store—”

“Nah,” Kakashi said. “You’ve been cooking too much. Let’s go somewhere.”

Yamato frowned. “Aren’t you out of money?”

“I’m _low_ on money, not _out_ ,” Kakashi corrected him.

“But we have to drive into town—”

“No, we have to drive to a few towns over,” Kakashi said.

Yamato blinked. “Oh. Where are we going?”

“I’m thinking somewhere classy,” Kakashi said. “Dress nice. Ten minutes you said?”

The drive over was pretty quiet. Kakashi’s radio was busted, so all they could hear was the rattle of his truck. Whenever it accelerated—which was often—there was a strange sensation of the air pressure inside the car increasing. Yamato rolled down his window to try and counteract the effect and quietly lost feeling in his fingers. The sun was just below the horizon and the air was starting to freeze. It wasn’t spring yet. The deciduous trees in the forest where Yamato worked were barely starting to bud.

Yamato pulled the collar of his turtleneck up higher. Kakashi was wearing his work chinos and a very nice red-and-black plaid scarf.

“I like your scarf,” Yamato said.

“Thanks.”

“It, um.” Yamato rubbed his nose to warm it. “It matches your eyes? Both of them.”

Kakashi gaze flicked over to him, then focused back on the road. “Thanks?”

“Why is one of your eyes red?” Yamato asked. He was through being subtle.

“Hyphema gone bad,” Kakashi said. “I told you about the cave-in thing. It fucked my eye up and now I’m heterochromatic.”

“Ah,” Yamato said.

“It tends to make people uncomfortable,” Kakashi said. “I cover it up when I’m not at home.”

“Yes, I noticed you wear an eyepatch when we go to Safeway,” Yamato said.

“I’m supposed to wear it all the time but I’d rather have depth perception.”

“I’m glad you don’t wear it while driving,” Yamato said.

Kakashi snorted. “Ha. I’m gonna wear it in the restaurant, be warned.”

“It makes you look like a badass,” Yamato said with a shrug.

Kakashi turned to look at him. “Oh yeah?”

Yamato concentrated on rolling his window up so that he could avoid looking Kakashi in the eye. “Yes.”

“Hm.” Kakashi pulled into the parking lot of a Hooters. “All right, follow my lead once we’re in there.”

“Wait, _this_ is where we’re going?” Yamato said.

Most of Kakashi’s face was hidden by his scarf but Yamato saw his eyes crinkle into a delighted smile. “It’s the classiest place for miles.”

“Good lord,” Yamato sighed.

“If you play along and we’re lucky, it’ll be my treat!” Kakashi said happily. He slammed the car door behind him.

“Why would we have to be—” Yamato began, but then Kakashi was opening the truck’s passenger door for him and taking his hand. He didn’t let go once Yamato was off the running board, either. He laced their fingers together, stuck his free hand in his pocket, and dragged Yamato into the restaurant.

The hostess looked up with a large, fake smile, dropped her gaze to their hands, then looked them in the eye with the same smile still firmly in place. “Hello, welcome to Hooters!”

“Heya,” Kakashi said. “Two for dinner.”

He pulled Yamato’s chair out for him when they reached their table. The hostess’ smile went wavery and soft at the edges, almost turning into something real. “Kayla will be back to take your order in a moment!”

“Thanks,” Kakashi said.

“What are you doing?” Yamato asked him quietly once the hostess bustled away.

“You’ll see,” Kakashi said.

Yamato’s eyes narrowed.

Kakashi waved a hand, swatting Yamato’s glare away. “Don’t worry! Just relax! Have a drink!”

“You’d better not get a drink,” Yamato said. “You’re driving.” He flipped over the cocktail menu. His eyebrows shot up. “Ah, never mind.”

“What looks good?” Kakashi asked.

“Nothing, it’s all too expensive,” Yamato said. 

He tried to turn back to the food but Kakashi slapped a hand down and trapped the menu face-up. “No, honestly, what looks good on there?”

Yamato winced. “I can’t—”

“I’d go for the Long-legged Long Island, myself,” Kakashi said. “Or the Orange Shorts Margarita. Oh, and look, if you order it in the glass shaped like a headless Hooters girl you get a discount.”

“Oh my god,” Yamato whispered, closing his eyes in mortification. He’d never been to Hooters before but the world was getting stranger every second he spent in there. It was probably 50% the restaurant itself and 50% the company he was with.

“I’m going to order you the special decapitated Hooters girl glass if you don’t pick a drink,” Kakashi said solemnly.

Yamato’s eyes snapped open. “Comfortably Numb. I’ll take a Comfortably Numb.”

Kakashi gave him that hidden smile again. “Was that so hard?”

“This is a strange form of psychological torture you’re putting me through, Kakashi,” Yamato said.

“It’s called ‘you get a free dinner,’” Kakashi said. “Now hurry up and pick an appetizer.”

Kakashi was very eager to hold his hand throughout the rest of their meal. Yamato had to eat his salad one-handed. Kakashi didn’t seem to mind how much hot sauce he got on his scarf as he gnawed on his wings. Kakashi ordered another Comfortably Numb for Yamato and watched him drink it. Then he asked if Yamato wanted dessert.

“I’m fine, really,” Yamato said quietly. He was mentally tallying up how much this was going to cost him—no way he was letting Kakashi pay the whole bill—and it was starting to make him feel queasy.

Kakashi picked a stray fragment of chicken out of his teeth, licked the last of the hot sauce from the corner of his mouth, and then clamped on to both of Yamato’s hands. “But I want you to be more than fine,” Kakashi said.

Yamato could feel his face freezing into an expression of horror.

“Look happy,” Kakashi hissed between his teeth. “Don’t look like a ghoul.”

Yamato tried to restart his heart. He was supposed to be acting right now? He risked a small smile. 

Kakashi’s eyelid flickered into a lightning-fast wink, and then he lifted Yamato’s hands from the table and gripped them tightly with his own. “Tenzo, you have made me happier these past four years than any man has a right to be.”

“What?” Yamato said.

Kakashi raised his eyebrows and deliberately grinned with all of his teeth.

Yamato pulled a smile back onto his face with some effort. Performance art was not his strong suit. 

“But I’m selfish,” Kakashi said. His voice was rising. People at other tables were starting to look over, families and other couples and a few of the men sitting alone at the bar. Waitresses were pausing in their bouncy tracks to watch this. 

Yamato felt his stomach dropping into his shoes. “Oh?” he said faintly.

Kakashi stood up, still clutching Yamato’s fingers tightly, and moved around to drop on one knee. He let go with one hand to fish in the pocket of his chinos. “I want you all to myself, forever,” he continued. “I want to wake up next to you for the rest of our lives. Tenzo”—a ring box was perched on his palm—“will you marry me?”

Yamato took a deep breath. He stretched his smile even wider and squeaked, “Yes?”

“He said yes!” Kakashi cried. He leapt to his feet and wrapped his arms around Yamato’s chest, lifting him out of his chair and into the air.

Everyone was cheering. A few of the men and women were crying. One little boy with self-inflicted marker lines on his face mimed throwing up and his father smacked him on the shoulder. Yamato closed his eyes and tried to slow down his heartbeat through sheer will alone.

“Congratulations!” their waitress cried. Strangers were clustering around them, patting Yamato on the back and oohing and ahhing over the ring Kakashi stuffed his finger into.

“Thanks, thank you,” Kakashi said to their admirers. “I’m so happy. Thanks.”

“Dinner’s on the house,” the manager called from the back of room. “Congratulations to the happy couple!”

“Oh my gosh, thank you!” Kakashi gasped. He wrapped an arm around Yamato’s neck and planted a loud kiss on his cheek.

“Darling,” Yamato murmured, “maybe we should _go_. Celebrate in private.”

“Ohoho,” Kakashi chortled. He tucked Yamato’s head against his shoulder. “All right, Tenzo. Sorry, everyone, he’s shy.”

“Yes,” Yamato said. “Thank you all so much, though.”

“We really appreciate it,” Kakashi said. They shook some more hands, thanked everyone again, left a tip for their waitress, and made it to the truck.

Yamato slammed the door much harder than necessary. “So, what the fuck was that?”

“Free dinner,” Kakashi said, starting the car. “Rin and I did it when we were in the army. You propose and everyone gets the warm gooey feeling in their hearts and gives you free food.”

“And you didn’t tell me we were going to do that _because_?” Yamato snapped.

“It’s funnier when you don’t know.”

Yamato pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and groaned. “That was so embarrassing.”

“You should have had more of those cocktails,” Kakashi said. “You know you’re never going to see those people ever again. There’s a reason we went to an out-of-town restaurant.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Yamato said. He peeled his hands away from his face and blinked spots from his eyes.

“I’ll let you pick the next restaurant,” Kakashi said. “But only if _you_ propose to _me_.”

Yamato stared at him. “You want to do that _again_?”

“Of course. Free dinner.” Kakashi raised his eyebrows as if Yamato was somehow speaking a foreign language. 

“I can’t act!” Yamato said. “I was terrible! There’s no way they believed me!”

“You were _fine_ ,” Kakashi assured him. “You were just shy, like I said. Next time you can plan it better. This was a trial run, think of it that way. I can keep being the one to propose for now, I guess. I’m good at it. Lots of practice.”

Yamato sighed. “Why’d you call me Tenzo in there?”

“It’s a nice name,” Kakashi said. “Why use your real one when you can use a nice, fake name?”

“I guess,” Yamato said. “Can we still stop by Safeway? I do need groceries.”

“Sure,” Kakashi said. “But you’re buying.”

“Yes,” Yamato said. “Because I’m the one who needs groceries.”

“What’s mine is yours and vice versa, though, Tenzo,” Kakashi said. He took his right hand off the wheel and draped it behind Yamato’s headrest. “How shall we celebrate our engagement?”

Yamato rolled his window down again, both to counteract the strange car pressure changes that were still pounding his inner ear and to hopefully cool down his burning face. “I’m sure you’ll pass out on the couch watching Spanish soap operas, as always.”

“Don’t talk shit about _Besos Robados_ ,” Kakashi said. The way he rolled his ‘r’s was obscene. Yamato pulled at the collar of his turtleneck and breathed deeply.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their third proposal was in a Denny’s. Yamato knew what to expect this time around at least. He walked in holding Kakashi’s hand with a neutral expression instead of looking concerned. He smiled across the table at him every now and then as they ate their meal. That was about all he could come up with; he wasn’t particularly creative about showing affection.

Kakashi took Yamato already knowing about the proposal as an incentive to try harder to shock him. He initiated a footsie session that lasted for a good ten minutes and snagged fries off of Yamato’s plate only to feed them back to him. 

Yamato couldn’t help glancing around. He’d never been a part of PDA before; it wasn’t something he was entirely comfortable with. No one at the other tables was giving them a second look, though.

Then Kakashi was suddenly sliding into the booth next to him.

“Oh. Um,” Yamato said.

“Tenzo,” Kakashi said, his face deadly serious.

“Yes?” Yamato said.

Kakashi wrapped an arm around Yamato’s shoulders and gazed into his eyes. “I want to ask you something.”

Kakashi’s voice was turning into the kind of tone that carried, which meant this was a performance for everyone else’s benefit, but Yamato was getting a very good look at the eyepatched-badass Kakashi and his heart was beating much faster than it should be under the circumstances. He schooled his expression into something open and curious. “Of course, dear. Anything.”

“Well,” Kakashi said, mouth quirking into a brief smile at the term ‘dear,’ “you know how passionately I feel about you.”

Yamato looked away and blushed. He hoped it passed as acting. “I do,” he said. Kakashi’s fingers were moving up and down his arm lightly, it was very distracting.

“I’ve never felt so close to someone in my life,” Kakashi said. “We sit up watching _Iorana_ and I hold your hand when you cry for Josefa and Fernando. I know I can tell you anything, Tenzo. I’ve loved you for years and I’ve known since the day I met you… Well. I’ll just say it.”

Yamato concentrated on breathing. Everything about this situation made him want to run or possibly start making out with Kakashi.

“Tenzo,” Kakashi said. “You are the light of my life. Will you marry me?”

There were gasps from their audience. Yamato deliberately bit his lip as he lifted his eyes to Kakashi’s. _I really hope he can’t read minds_ , Yamato thought, _because holy shit I fall for him every time he lies like this_.

“I can’t imagine my life without you,” Yamato said. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Kakashi gasped loudly, pressing a hand to his heart. “Oh, _Tenzo_! You’ve made me so happy!”

Yamato dove forward and wrapped himself around Kakashi first, to prevent him from lifting Yamato out of the booth. It absolutely did not work. Kakashi was the wiry kind of strong. Yamato found himself hauled up in a tight embrace and then Kakashi upped the stakes again and swung him around in a circle. Yamato’s foot knocked a chair over and he hissed at the rattling metal-on-ankle sensation but he didn’t loosen his grip.

Kakashi set him down and dropped to one knee, pulling the familiar ring box from his pocket. He slid the ring on Yamato’s finger and Yamato smiled as hard as he could.

“I love you,” Kakashi said.

“I love _you_ ,” Yamato replied.

“Dinner’s on the house for you two lovebirds!” the restaurant manager cried. He was openly weeping, as were several other patrons.

“Nice,” Kakashi said when they were in the car headed back to town. He aimed a thumbs-up at Yamato without turning away from the road.

“You as well,” Yamato said.

“You should propose next time,” Kakashi said. “I think you’re ready.”

“Really, I wouldn’t know what to say,” Yamato said.

“Talk to Rin for ideas. She insisted on being the one to propose to me every time. She’s damn good.”

“I don’t—”

“Come on,” Kakashi said. “It’s fun!”

Yamato rolled down the window and let the wind pour over his face. “I’ll think about it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s definitely fun,” Rin said. 

Yamato sighed. He knew Kakashi had told her to invite Yamato out for coffee but he’d been hoping that she was less childish than Kakashi about the whole ‘marriage proposal for free dinner’ thing. It had been a sad, fragile hope and he wasn’t surprised to see it crushed this quickly.

“I’m not particularly good at acting,” he said. “Could we talk about something else? Anything else?”

“No,” Rin said. “This is the best con we ever managed to pull. Everyone gets to feel good at the end of it and the restaurant’s only down thirty, fifty bucks.”

“Yes, but—”

“And now he’s invited you in on it,” Rin continued. Her grin was speculative. “I wonder why?”

“He said he felt guilty for making me cook all the time,” Yamato said.

Rin blew a raspberry. “Fuck no, he’s not the type to feel guilty about shit like that.”

Yamato raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

Rin tilted her head to one side and smiled at him. “You should do it. Make up a timeline for how you got together, maybe mention a few romantic anecdotes. If you feel yourself getting embarrassed and flustered and all that, say something about how you aren’t good with words and just go for it.”

“…Go for it?” Yamato said.

“Drop down and pop that question,” Rin said. 

Yamato looked down into his coffee cup. “I’ll admit it’s foolish, but I can’t help thinking of what I’d do if he said no.”

“That’s not how you get free food,” Rin said. “You get free food when everyone feels happy about what went down. He literally won’t say no. Zero chance of rejection.”

Yamato sighed and took a sip of his coffee. 

“You do think it’s fun, right?” Rin asked.

“I don’t know,” Yamato said.

“I always liked it. Little bit of drama, little bit of romance. I knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere with me, though,” Rin sighed. She ripped a piece off her muffin and rolled the pastry between her fingers, forming a little ball. “Obito’s always going to be between us.”

“How so?” Yamato asked.

Rin popped the wad of muffin in her mouth and chewed with her eyes closed, jaw working at a deliberate pace. She swallowed and said, “Love triangle.” She raised her right hand palm-up and said, “Me.” She rested her left index finger on her palm and said, “Obito.” She pointed at her muffin with her right hand. “Kakashi.” Then she looked at the shape she had made. “I guess it’s less a triangle and more a line that ends with him.”

“He didn’t return your feelings?” Yamato said.

Rin shook her head, hair whipping across her face. “And it’s not cuz he’s only into guys, I heard a few things. He just never liked me that way. Like I was never into Obito that way.” She propped her head on her hand and ripped another piece of muffin off. “I got over it a long, long time ago. I’m his friend because I’m aggressive about it but we’re never gonna end up dating.”

“Is he uninterested in dating?” Yamato asked.

Rin smirked at him. “He was way into getting laid, that’s for sure. No one could stand him for too long, though. You know how he is; kind of weird, kind of quiet.”

Yamato shrugged.

“You want a piece of that?” Rin said. Her smirk was widening. “You liiiiike him? Hm?”

Yamato shrugged again.

“Ask him out, then,” Rin said.

“Normally I’d have no issue with that,” Yamato said. “But we’re roommates.”

“Yep. Craigslist roommates, I hear,” Rin snickered. “It was fate.”

“No,” Yamato said. “It could be awkward if he doesn’t reciprocate. This is the best living situation I have ever found and I don’t want to jeopardize it.”

“Living with a crazy dog man who’s addicted to porn and Spanish soap operas and survives off of Gatorade is the best living situation?” Rin said sarcastically.

Yamato finished his coffee in one gulp and set the cup down neatly in its saucer. “I was in a foster home that was… unsafe. For quite some time. And then I was going through search and rescue training and learning to be a park ranger and I didn’t care where I lived, so I lived in my car. Until the car died. And now I live with Kakashi. So yes, this is the best living situation I’ve ever been in.”

Rin wrapped her hand around his wrist. Yamato blinked down at it, then looked up to find her giving him a very small, encouraging smile. “He wouldn’t kick you out. He’d just say no and leave it at that. Or say yes.”

“I’d rather not risk it.”

Rin took her hand away with a sigh. “Whelp, at least give asking him to marry you a shot, if it’s as close as you’re willing to get to the real deal.”

Yamato’s wrist was cold without Rin’s hand there. He realized he’d never had so much casual human contact since he moved in with Kakashi. Guy was a hugger, Rin liked to lean on people or play with their hair or hands, and Kakashi had proposed to him five times in the past two months.

“ _Marriage_ and _dating_ aren’t the same,” Yamato said. Mostly to remind himself. 

Rin threw back her head and laughed. “That’s the joke, Tenzo!”

“It’s Yamato,” Yamato said coldly. He didn’t like being laughed at.

Rin was still grinning when she met his eye again. “That’s not what he calls you.” And she winked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was an IHOP the sixth time because Kakashi insisted Yamato’s weekend pancakes were shit. It was an hour’s drive away and neither of them spoke. Yamato had figured out the exact level to crack his window so not too much cold air got in, but the strange pressure that affected the truck cab during acceleration could escape.

“You gonna do it or should I?” Kakashi asked as he shut off the engine and popped his door open.

“I will,” Yamato said.

“All right, Tenzo!” Kakashi’s eye crinkled up in a smile that was kept hidden behind his old plaid scarf. Mornings still held a chill, though crocuses and daffodils and snowdrops were bursting out on every patch of green they could find.

“It’s Yamato,” Yamato muttered.

“I like Tenzo,” Kakashi said.

Yamato tried to catch his eye at that, but Kakashi had already slammed the car door shut and was sauntering around to open Yamato’s door for him. Yamato reached for the hand he’d come to expect, then yelped when Kakashi suddenly wrapped an arm behind his back, stuffed another arm behind the backs of his knees, and bodily lifted him from the car. Yamato wrapped his arms tightly around Kakashi’s neck.

“Could you shut that?” Kakashi grunted, nodding at the gaping passenger door.

Yamato swatted it shut and went back to clinging for dear life to Kakashi’s shoulders. “Why are you doing this?”

“Dunno,” Kakashi said. “I felt like it.” He walked them up to the swinging doors and then set Yamato down legs first. “Is that okay?”

“ _Ask_ next time,” Yamato snapped. He rubbed a hand through his hair and tried to breathe evenly. He’d messed it up right out of the gate, yelling at his fake-boyfriend-soon-to-be-fake-fiancee in front of the glass doors of the IHOP. It could be pre-proposal jitters making him cantankerous? He could play it off that way. He darted a glance at Kakashi and saw that the man was waiting for him, hands in his pockets and head to one side. It was impossible to read the expression behind the eyepatch and the scarf.

“Sorry, dear,” Yamato said; he’d never managed to come up with a fake name that suited Kakashi. He held out a hand.

Kakashi made no move to take it. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, you know.”

Yamato blinked. “I know.” He left his hand out.

“All right, as long as you know.” Kakashi linked hands with him and they walked into the IHOP together.

Kakashi kept all of his limbs to himself for the meal, and it was very strange. Yamato had grown used to unexpected bumps against his knees or ankles, to a hand suddenly gripping his or stealing his menu to point out something new or so disgusting they had to order it.

Yamato tentatively reached out and tapped Kakashi’s hand with two fingers after they’d placed their order with the waitress. “Are you all right?”

Kakashi shrugged. He rubbed at his cheek, mashing at the eyepatch without actually putting any pressure on it. 

“That’s not an answer,” Yamato said. “Or, rather, it’s not enough of one.”

“Am I making you do this?” Kakashi asked.

Yamato gave him a faint smile. “Well. Yes. But you’re right about it being fun.”

“Why is it fun?” Kakashi said. His visible eye was dark and serious. “You have enough money, you don’t have to be scamming a free meal. I could go bother Rin when I’m out of food before my next paycheck clears.”

“I’m fine feeding you,” Yamato said. “I like it. Eating with someone else is better than eating alone.”

“Yeah, but— I don’t know,” Kakashi said.

“What don’t you know?” Yamato asked.

“Whether you actually want to go on a date or not. Like, a real date. With sex at the end of it.”

Yamato leaned back in the booth until his back was against something solid. “Oh.”

“Ah, fuck,” Kakashi said.

“Uh, here’s your order,” their waitress said. She eyed Kakashi as she put their plates down, then darted off. 

Yamato stared at his pancakes. “I do.”

“What?” Kakashi said.

Yamato unrolled his utensils and set his napkin in his lap. “I do want to go on a date. With you.”

“Huh,” Kakashi said. “With the sex at the end of it?”

“Sure,” Yamato said. 

“ _When_ ,” Kakashi said, and his voice was comically desperate.

Yamato suppressed a smile. “This can count.”

“But you’re going to propose to me at the end of it,” Kakashi said.

Yamato looked up from the butter he was smearing on his pancakes, eyebrows raised. “And will you say no?”

Kakashi grinned. “Of course not.”

“Well then,” Yamato said. “As long as you remember that I get to pick the next place we go out, we can have first-date, we-just-got-engaged sex. After breakfast.” He dug into his breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I not sure what ecstatic dance is, if I made it up in a yuppie fever dream or what, but I picture Jazzercise with less structure and that’s all Guy would want in life I think.
> 
> The car air pressure thing is super weird, I know, but I was in a car that gave me a headache doing the exact thing I attempt to describe. Maybe someone knows what the fuck it is. I can’t call _Car Talk_ to ask about it anymore. :(
> 
> Hyphema is also known as an eight-ball fracture. If you aren’t into eye-horror don’t google it. It’s basically blood filling the iris. There’s a lot of treatments for it but Kakashi is horrible at self-care so he didn’t do any of them and it stained his iris and he doesn’t give a fuck. His vision is probably somewhat impaired.
> 
> All those drinks from Hooters are real. Including the deal with the glass shaped like a curvy, headless Hooters girl. It’s terrifying, you can google that.
> 
> I didn’t know you got free food if you proposed in a restaurant until my friend sent me an AU request for this. It seems like an awesome and exploitable idea. Still tip your server, though.
> 
>  _Besos Robados_ is a Venezuelan teen drama telenovela that has underage themes I don’t endorse. _Iorana_ is a Chilean telenovela that partially takes place on Easter Island, which sounds pretty cool. _Los ricos también lloran_ is a VERY popular Mexican telenovela from 1979, which also sounds amazing (I like 80s media).
> 
> Disclaimer: super don’t grab people out of your truck unless they’re cool with it. This is some highly physical flirting, do not attempt without prior planning. And another disclaimer: dates don’t have to end in sex, these are just two people who are into the idea. Perhaps you’re wondering why they have arranged sex over bfast in two separate universes? Because it is the best meal of the day.


	9. Medical Experimentation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me people still know what candystriping is.

Rin blew her bangs out of her face and glared. “Kakashi.”

The mound of blankets in front of her grunted.

“Get up.”

Another grunt. One long, skinny foot popped out into the open air. The toes spread wide, stretching, then the whole thing jerked back out of sight like a feral animal. 

Rin sighed and started hauling quilts off. More and more blankets seemed to appear, but eventually she unearthed the skinny torso and ragged sweatpants of her best friend. He curled up in a ball with a whine.

“Get up. You’re not allowed to be alone in my apartment after that incident with the stove and my computer hard-drive. You’re coming candystriping with me.”

“Noooo,” Kakashi groaned. 

“Yes. And wear your slacks. I got you a uniform shirt. You’ve been volunteered.”

Kakashi finally cracked an eyelid. It was his glass eye, so it was definitely for effect rather than an attempt to actually get a look at her. “I’ll leave. You don’t have to take me to work.”

“Oh?” Rin crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a patient smile. “And whose couch are you going to crash on?”

Kakashi closed his eye and didn’t move.

“You’ve slept with everyone we know except Guy,” Rin said. “Are you gonna go over to Guy’s house?”

“No,” Kakashi muttered.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

“Slept with you,” Kakashi pointed out around a yawn. “You don’t hate me. Or avoid me awkwardly like I’m not going to notice you’re avoiding me.”

“Yeah, that was _years_ ago,” Rin said. “And it was maybe four times, then I came to my senses.” She rubbed her forehead. “Listen, I would commit murder for you but I don’t trust you to be alone in this apartment. You have ten minutes. Wash your eye and brush your teeth, for god’s sake. And get dressed. I’ll make you toast.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kakashi had tucked half his regulation polo into his slacks. The other half was crumpled and trailing over his belt buckle. His hair was that marvelous tangle of gravity-defying fluff and horrible stiffness that boggled the mind. Rin had known him for over a decade and she still had no idea how he managed to wake up with that strange mess on top of his head looking that way. It had to be a genetic thing, just like his prematurely grey hair and freckles were genetic.

“Stick with me,” she told him. She tried patting his hair down. She knew it wouldn’t work, but she had to try. It didn’t work.

“Yeah,” Kakashi grumbled. 

“We’re going to be doing anything they need us to do. I’ll handle the autoclave and filing but you can help with patients or with cleaning up bigger messes or delivering flowers and stuff. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Smile,” Rin ordered.

Kakashi gave her a long, blank stare. Rin bared her teeth at him in an encouragement and a threat. A corner of his mouth reluctantly twitched upward.

“Sufficient,” Rin said. “Don’t look at patients like you want to kill them and we should be all right.”

“Yeah,” Kakashi said.

“Smile,” Rin reminded him, and they were off. She picked up her name badge and grabbed a Hello, My Name Is badge off the roll at the nurses’ station for Kakashi. He wrote his first name and signed one of his weird smiley-faces in the corner. Rin rolled her eyes but Kakashi just calmly stuck the badge to his chest and followed her, looming in a bored way as she straightened rooms and took items from doctors and nurses to return them to their rightful places. She smiled at everyone. This was one of the best hospitals in the area and once she graduated med school, she was damn well going to work here. All her volunteer hours and constant brown-nosing of the staff were going to pay off and she was going to be a pediatrician and trauma surgeon here. Somehow. It was going to happen.

As she was psyching herself up again, Kakashi nodded off leaning against the wall and knocked a cleaning cart into a potted palm. Rin barely managed to grab his arm before he fell on the entire mess.

“Woops,” Kakashi said.

Rin sank her fingernails into his bicep and hissed, “Come with me.”

She sat him down on a hard plastic Ikea chair in the staff break room and set her hands on her hips. “All right, you can pick what you’re job’s going to be for the day. We have six more hours on-shift and I’ll buy you lunch but you have got to stop making me look bad.”

“For a free lunch, I will try,” Kakashi said. He gave her a long, lazy blink and then added, “Oh, and for you too, of course.”

“Dick,” she muttered, but she couldn’t help smiling. “What do you want to do?”

“Deliveries,” Kakashi said, yawning again. “I have to move or else I’ll pass out again.”

“You shouldn’t have stayed up so late,” Rin said.

“I had to finish reading that fic,” Kakashi said with a shrug. “It had a pretty hot threesome in it.”

“Could you not talk about your porn habits at _my place of future work_?” Rin hissed.

Kakashi grinned. “Buy me a coffee before lunch and I will try to keep it to myself.”

Rin was getting a stress headache already and it wasn’t even ten in the morning. She bought him his coffee and gave him the cart with deliveries on it.

“The room number’s usually on the tag,” she said. “Don’t mix things up otherwise people complain. Think you can handle that?”

“Yep,” Kakashi said.

Rin slapped him on the back. “Go get ‘em.”

He sipped his coffee and slumped off, elbows resting on the cart handle lazily. He’d be fine. Probably.

Rin ducked by the nurses’ station to see if they needed any help and it seemed her luck had turned; they were short-staffed enough that they were willing to let a pre-med student assist with patient-care liaisons. She’d been through training for it but it was still a rare day when they let her use her skills. She was _good_ at it, of course. Talking with people and making them feel safe was a skill she had developed in direct contrast to Kakashi—or maybe due to him. Back when he still got panic attacks in enclosed spaces, she was the one who could always talk him back from that heaving, shaking, distant place deep inside him that was still holding Obito’s cold hand in the cave-in. 

Unravelling such terrors had prepared her for just about anything a nervous patient could throw her way. The hospital normally had a few people willing to work that job and she’d be stuck on janitorial, but a few folks had missed their shifts. She was given a clipboard and sent into the first room.

A bug-eyed teen was hooked up to an oxygen mask, one hand fisted on the sheets and the other one clenched around the stem of a battered-looking daffodil. He was sitting up with tears pouring down his face, though he didn’t look particularly ill. His expression was blank more than it was anguished.

“Hi there, Tenzo,” Rin said, sneaking a glance at her clipboard. “Welcome to Hidden Leaf Hospital. I’m Rin.”

The teen squeezed his eyes shut and nodded.

“So you’re having some pretty bad allergies this year?” Rin said.

“Yamato,” the kid rasped.

Rin blinked. “Sorry?”

“Name on the form should be Yamato,” he said.

Rin squinted at it. “I’m sorry, are you not Tenzo?”

“Not anymore.”

Rin made a note on the form. “Um. All right then. But you’ve had these allergic reactions before?”

He needed a renewed prescription for an inhaler, and Rin reminded him to stay away from triggering substances. Not that it would be much help. It was spring and she could tell by his streaming eyes that he was the type to feel his worst when everything was blooming.

He scrubbed at the tears leaking down his face and said, “Thank you. But I have a quick question.”

“Yes?”

“Who’s the delivery guy?”

Rin looked at him blankly. “Who?”

“The grey-haired man,” Yamato said. “With the eyepatch? He gave me a flower.” He held up his obnoxiously yellow daffodil.

Rin darted a glance at the door, but of course Kakashi wasn’t there. “He should have been wearing a nametag.”

“Oh,” Yamato said. “I didn’t notice.”

Rin’s focus snapped back to this teenager with a bad haircut and large, wet eyes. “Really.”

Yamato ducked his head and didn’t answer. She thought she could see a slight flush at the tips of his ears. Maybe it was hay fever symptoms.

Rin told him medical details he’d have to follow with his new prescription and sent him on his way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“That was kind of fun,” Kakashi said as they walked to the bus stop after their volunteer shift was over.

“Really,” Rin said.

“Maybe I’ll come next weekend,” Kakashi said.

“Maybe you should come every day because you don’t have a job,” Rin suggested. “You freeloading shitloaf.”

Kakashi gave her an extravagantly bored look and pulled his Kindle from an inside pocket of his denim jacket. “I got a new romance novel about reverse centaurs, shall I read it aloud to you while we wait for the 46?”

“I will kill you in your sleep.” 

“But dot dot dot You’re a Horse, by David Russell,” Kakashi read, squinting at the screen. “Chapter One.”

“Is there seriously an ellipsis in the title?” Rin said.

“Check out the cover image,” Kakashi said, and held out the Kindle to traumatize her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rin almost didn’t get up to volunteer the next weekend. Classes and her new residency were killing her slowly. She’d sleep for maybe four hours a night. Kakashi had sat up with her, making very bad coffee and reading aloud from whatever pornography he was engrossed in at the moment. There were fragmented names, a textbook-worth of improbable positions, and supernatural orgies that made Rin slap her head down on her homework and laugh until there were tear-stains on her notes. He was always awake when she was up late and she loved him for that. She wasn’t sure what kind of hours her friend usually kept but she appreciated him adjusting his schedule for her.

Saturday, though, he had an agenda. “Rin.”

She groaned and buried her head under her pillow.

“Get up.”

She felt around, found one of her lightest textbooks digging into her hip, and threw it at his voice. She didn’t hear it hit him. It fell to the floor with a fluttery bang.

“Get up, we’re candystriping again.” Kakashi whipped the pillow off her head.

As Rin squinted up at him, she lamented their role reversal. “Fucker, leave me to die.”

“No,” Kakashi said. “Come on, let’s give back to the community and whatever.”

“Make me eggs?” she said.

“I bought Pop-Tarts,” he offered.

She kicked him in the thigh but levered herself into a seated position. “ _Fine._ I’m up. Now get out. I gotta change.”

“I’ve seen you naked on many occasions,” Kakashi said. “I don’t want to miss another opportunity.”

Rin glared at him, imagining how wonderful it would be if she could set him on fire with her thoughts.

Some of her aggression must have come through because he backed out, hands raised. “I’ll put a Pop-Tart in for you.”

“Hot Chocolate flavor!” she yelled. “And two of them!”

Rin sulked on the bus and fell asleep on Kakashi’s shoulder and then sulked some more when he woke her up for their stop. She put on her chapstick and managed to hoist a smile into place when she walked through the hospital doors, though. Professionalism was her sword and shield. She really, really wanted a job after graduation. When the nurses recognized her and asked how she was doing, she felt a little spark of hope light up her chest. She was making connections. _Networking. ___

__They all _really_ went after Kakashi, though._ _

__“Oh, so he’s back for more?” teased the director’s assistant, Shizune. “Still hoping?”_ _

__Kakashi gave one of his very small, flat smiles that didn’t mean anything. “What would the world be like without hope?”_ _

__One of the other nurses piped up, “We believe in you, Kakashi. He’s been coming in with sillier and sillier complaints; that crush isn’t going to die any time soon.”_ _

__Kakashi nodded thoughtfully. “Sooooo how often do you actually use your storage closets? Asking for a friend.”_ _

__The nurses all howled with laughter but Shizune winced. “Please don’t do anything that would scandalize the donors.”_ _

__“I think you mean ‘Don’t get _caught_ doing anything to scandalize the donors,’” a nurse said, and they all went off into gales of laughter again._ _

__“Is he in right now?” Kakashi said._ _

__“Find out for yourself,” Shizune said sharply. “Go _do your job_ , please.”_ _

__“Yes, ma’am,” Kakashi said, ducking his head in a display of meekness that was clearly a joke. The nurses snickered._ _

__Rin watched all of this with wide eyes. “What the hell have you been doing while I was in class?” she asked. Kakashi shot her a dirty look and loped off without another word._ _

__Shizune stepped up and murmured, “He’s been in every day. And a certain patient has been back every _other_ day, complaining about the worst case of hay fever in the world.”_ _

__Rin’s mouth dropped open. “No.”_ _

__Shizune just smiled and bustled off. Rin ducked behind the desk and dragged her finger down the roster. There was a patient with the first name Y. in room 148, complaining of—_ _

__“Does that say ‘splinters’?” Rin said._ _

__The nurse snorted and flicked her bleached hair behind her shoulders. “Sure does.”_ _

__“What the fuck?” Rin hissed._ _

__“Watch the mouth,” another nurse scolded. “You want to work pediatrics, learn the value of substitution.”_ _

__“What the _fudge_ ,” Rin said, rolling her eyes. The nurse nodded his approval._ _

__“He’s shameless,” the blonde nurse said. “The way Kakashi flirts with him and he flirts right back. It’s cute as hell. We have a betting pool on where it goes from here. Want to bet on dating or closet sex?”_ _

__Rin sighed deeply. “I can guess what Kakashi wants. I hope the kid has better judgement, though.”_ _

__“He is young, isn’t he?” the blonde nurse said, frowning faintly. “I mean, he’s over eighteen because we’re not allowed to give out his medical information to anyone, but still. How old is Kakashi?”_ _

__“Did you need me to check on anything?” Rin said. “Because if not, I want to just. Check on something.”_ _

__The blonde nurse waved her off, still frowning. “Come back in twenty minutes, there’s a surgery clearing up and we may need you to put some things through the autoclave.”_ _

__“Sure,” Rin said. She snagged a clipboard and walked with purpose down the hall. In a hospital, no one questioned fast-walking folks in uniform. She slowed down outside room 148 and listened, either for conversation or sex noises. There was nothing. Some shoes squeaked on the hallway floors and someone coughed a few rooms away._ _

__Rin poked her head in._ _

__Yamato was sitting cross-legged on the exam table and Kakashi was standing in front of him, his hands on either side of Yamato’s hips. They were kissing in a very slow, patient, quiet way that Rin had no idea Kakashi was capable of. This was marathon-paced kissing. This could go on for quite a while, and both of them clearly expected it to._ _

__Rin quietly pulled her head back out and even more quietly shut the door. Kakashi had abandoned his delivery cart and so she wheeled it off, doing his rounds for him. She’d tease him about his sudden interest in youth later; using Guy-isms was a great way to piss off Kakashi and he’d just handed her the perfect ammunition._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like coming up with various theories as to why Kakashi would have one jacked up eye in a world without magic. In this case I think he still lost his eye in an accident when he was like ten. He wanted it to be heterochromatic for horrible depressing reasons (match his eye to Obito’s) but wasn’t allowed to until he was an adult because everyone thought it was creepy. Because it’s pretty creepy. I think he’s sentimental about strange things, though, so he got his wish once he hit his twenties. He’s supposed to keep the eye in constantly and just take it out and wash it a few times a day. He’s got eye drops to keep it from sticking because he’s old but surgery has improved a lot recently so people who have to have an eye removed can actually keep their tear ducts and they don’t need the drops so much anymore; I think that’s pretty neat. 
> 
> Freckled Kakashi is something I heard someone suggest once and I have never forgotten because dayum. Freckles. Yes.
> 
> I really like the word ‘autoclave’ can you tell.


	10. Gay Den Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yamato single-handedly seeks to challenge heteronormative values in the ninja village. While it’s established that this iteration of Konoha is pretty ignorant about anything outside cishet, I felt no need to include slurs in this fic (because I hate them).
> 
> This is set in Konoha but I’m still calling it an AU because I don’t know what else to do with it. I didn’t try to fit it into the plot of _Shippuden_ or anything, it’s just kind of…there. The next few AUs I want to write are actually all ninja village AUs, so heads up.

“Uhhh, it’s Captain Yamato, yeah?”

Yamato put down his book, holding his place on the page with a fingertip. “Yes?”

The teen in front of him shifted from foot to foot, sharp little eyes darting anywhere but Yamato. “Can I talk to you?”

Yamato raised an eyebrow but nodded. “Yes. You are…?”

“Inuzaka Kiba,” the teen said. Yamato knew his own face didn’t change, but his focus sharpened. So this was Kiba. The teen’s leather jacket creaked with every movement as he scraped one sandaled foot up the back of his leg. Yamato grew him a chair across the little tea-shop table and Kiba flinched as it wove itself together, but he did sit down in it after a moment. There was a low whine from outside the shop—one of the famous Inuzaka ninja hounds, no doubt.

“How can I help you?” Yamato asked.

“You’re gay, right?” Kiba blurted.

Yamato privately wondered how these kids found out that he was queer. Out loud, he said, “That’s an odd thing to ask. Why?”

“Cuz I think I like my teammate?” Kiba said, ducking his head. “And he’s a guy.”

Yamato looked down at the page number he’d stopped on, memorized it, and shut his book. “I am fairly gay, yes.”

“Um… am I gay?” Kiba whispered.

“Do you think you’re gay?” Yamato countered.

Kiba flailed for a moment, as if the answer would reveal itself if he managed to fight off invisible demons. Then his hands dropped to his lap. “I dunno,” he said, his voice still very soft. “I like my teammate. Doesn’t that make me gay?”

He sounded so _sad_ about it, and Yamato slid his hand across the table, palm-down, until it was in Kiba’s peripheral vision. Kiba looked up in surprise and Yamato gave him his best ‘You can trust me’ look. 

“Does it matter if you’re gay?” Yamato asked. “I can tell you for certain it doesn’t matter in terms of your ability as a shinobi. If anyone treats you poorly because of your sexuality you should either tell the Hokage or come tell me so that _I_ can tell Lady Tsunade. Are there specific reasons you’re worried about this?”

Kiba shrugged. “I don’t wanna get yelled at.”

Yamato was surprised to find that the idea of someone yelling at this rather smelly, mournful teen in front of him was starting to make him feel angry. He sat back in his chair. “Who would yell at you?”

“I dunno. People. My mom. She yells a _lot_.” Kiba’s face turned thoughtful. “I dunno, though. She might not care.”

Yamato had never had to deal with parents but he knew enough to realize that parental approval was something every child sought…for a while. There were more important things, though.

“She might be mad,” Yamato said. “But I don’t think that’s a fact that should keep you from living your life the way you want to. You’re… chunin, right?”

Kiba swallowed hard and nodded. 

“By shinobi standards, you’re an adult who is responsible for his own life, in addition to the lives of your fellow shinobi,” Yamato said. “And I’ve heard Naruto talk about you before. He’s… well, he’s not a perfect person, but I’m sure he’d let you stay with him if you had to.” That upwelling of anger had not left him. That was the only reason he could think of for why he then said, “And if you don’t want to stay with him, my dining room floor is available. If you need that, of course.”

Kiba’s head jerked up, his eyes wide. “Wait, really? And Akamaru, too?”

“Of course,” Yamato said. He mentally reasoned that Kakashi was already used to dogs; one more wouldn't make much of a difference in how their apartment smelled.

Kiba blinked. “Oh. Thanks. But, um.”

“Yes?”

Kiba covered his face with his hands. “How do I tell him I like him?” he muttered between his fingers.

“I don’t know."  Yamato considered for a moment, then clasped his hands on the table.  “Do you think he’s interested in you?”

“I can’t read that guy at _all_ ,” Kiba said. “No one can.” His hands dropped back into his lap, though, and he admitted, “I dunno, actually. Um. Sometimes I think… But I dunno.”

“Would he react badly if you asked him out?” Yamato asked carefully. Yamato already knew the answer to this question, but it was good for Kiba to consider these possibilities for any future relationships he might enter into.

“No,” Kiba said without hesitation. “He’s chill as fu— He’s really chill. I just don’t know what to _say_. I’ve never asked anyone out before.”

“I see. Well, try pretending I’m Sh— whoever it is and tell me you like me.”  Yamato put on his best attentive face.

Kiba drew a breath and said, “Uh. So. I wanna date you maybe? If that’s cool.”

Yamato waited for a moment.  “Well.  All right."  He cleared his throat.  "Perhaps if you listed one or two qualities you like about this person, then asked if he wanted to go on a date with you?  I suppose you know each other pretty well if you’re teammates, but you can talk about non-work related things and get to know each other in a context beyond being shinobi together.  Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” Kiba said thoughtfully. Then, with more enthusiasm, “Yeah! I like that! Okay! Thanks, Captain!”

“Not at all,” Yamato murmured as he watched Kiba run off to join his dog. The dog was even bigger than Bull, but if necessary he and Kakashi could make room for it.

After a moment, he banished the other chair back into the floor and smiled faintly. Shino had come by a whole week ago, but apparently he was more shy than Kiba; Yamato had given him similar advice and yet nothing had come of it.  Now it seemed something was going to change. He hoped things went well for both of them.

Yamato reopened his book and found his place, but soon the words passing under his eyes were no longer registering. He was going to have to do something about these ninja teen hormones soon.  Lust was in the air and things were coming up that normally would be buried under rigid social norms.  But this wasn’t the era of suppression anymore.  The biggest secret was already out; Naruto knew what he was and why the village had hated him.  Things were changing for the better. Accepting a Jinchuriki had to be more difficult than accepting sons and daughters and those who wouldn’t subscribe to rigid binaries. Perhaps an era of homophobia and quiet, inalterable suppression was coming to an end. If Yamato had any say in it, actually, that era would be dead and gone as soon as possible. Naruto’s classmates had the right to know that there were other options out there, beyond ‘the way things have always been done.’

In his favorite tea shop, with tasōtō inspirations fading to the back of his mind, Yamato began to plan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back when Yamato was Kinoe, he’d never questioned who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He’d known when he was eleven. The grey-haired kid everyone was scared of was the only person in the world he wanted to be around. Every time Hatake Kakashi talked to him, he felt safe. There was a kind of gravity around Kakashi, a protectiveness that enveloped Kinoe, and though he didn’t see Kakashi much after the other boy left ANBU, he’d smile behind his mask whenever he spotted him around the village or they accidentally crossed paths on a mission.

The fact that Kakashi was a boy and Kinoe was also a boy didn’t even enter Kinoe’s mind as an issue until he was fifteen. Danzo dropped some comment about how disgusting it was that Orochimaru had participated in “degrading sexual practices” with other men during his time in the village. Kinoe’s heart stopped for a moment.

Orochimaru had made Kinoe in a test tube.

Orochimaru was evil and twisted in every possible way.

Kinoe didn’t want to be like that.

Did wanting to hold hands with Kakashi make Kinoe evil? Kinoe didn’t feel like messing around with children’s genetics, so at least that part of Orochimaru wasn’t catching. What was the connection between evil and liking boys? Kinoe tossed and turned on his thin, ANBU-issue dormitory mattress for long weeks until he finally decided that he was going to have to do some serious research.

The Konoha public library had very, very few books on sexuality. There were, in fact, four of them. Three were by a man named Jiraiya, were designated ‘fiction,’ and had been checked out already. The last one was a classified document in a classified part of the library, written by a classified person.

After Kinoe broke into the library after hours and tracked down that book, he discovered it was an analysis of the First Hokage’s relationship with his wife and with Uchiha Madara.  There were love poems Senju Hashirama had written to an unclear recipient, letters in code, and some quiet testimony at the end from Hashirama’s wife, Uzumaki Mito, about what it meant to be in an open relationship.  Overall, it was a strange piece that used a lot of words Kinoe didn’t know. He made careful note of them and looked them up in his dictionary when he returned to his room in the wee hours of the morning.

Polyamory.

Open relationship.

Heterosexual.

Homosexual.

Bisexual.

“I’m homosexual,” Kinoe said to himself. It felt… strange. Not quite right. But it would do for now. At least he knew that wanting to be with someone when you were both boys had a word—homosexual—and that it didn’t mean you were evil. No one thought Hashirama was evil. Hashirama and Orochimaru just both happened to have relationships with men. 

But Hashirama had married a woman, and she said he’d loved her. So you could love more than one person? That didn’t feel right to Kinoe. From what he’d heard his fellow ANBU talking about it was a pretty common practice. You ‘dated’ people and then if you didn’t like them you dated different people. Kinoe only wanted one person. He didn’t bring it up during those kinds of conversations, though, in case the rest of ANBU made fun of him. He’d just turned sixteen and his voice was changing and everyone could tell he was still a kid. No reason to seem even more like a child in their eyes.

He wondered what was in those other books about sexuality, and who had checked them out. He broke into the library after another successful ANBU mission and dug through computer files until he came to a patron record: Hatake Kakashi.

Kinoe’s eyebrows rose. He placed holds on all three books and waited almost a month for Kakashi to return them. Then he read them all.

The sex scenes were…strange. There was a lot of yelling and moaning and crying, and were things really supposed to happen in the butt? It all sounded ludicrous. There were tender kisses, though, and Kinoe was very interested in learning more about those first-hand. The closeness of another person also sounded pleasant. He’d found in those rare instances when he was touching someone, pressed back-to-back or carrying them or being carried, he enjoyed that human contact. It was always over too soon for him. The idea that someone would want to hold on to _him_ was a very nice idea.

In the end, innocence guided him. He came up to Kakashi during the end of a mission and said, “Senpai, can we go on dates like the ones in _Ploughman’s Furrow_?”

Kakashi had fallen out of a tree over that question but he’d also said yes. And the rest was history, apart from hiding a gay tryst from Danzo. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamato started coming to the tea shop at the same time every day he wasn’t on a mission. It wasn’t too often, but it seemed every time he managed to make his ‘office hours’ he would encounter a ninja in Naruto’s class who was looking to have a quiet chat. When there were multiple people, Yamato tried to get them all to sit and talk together. This didn’t succeed very often—the only case was Shikamaru and Choji, who came to talk about queerplatonic lifepartnerships and open relationships (and learned that there were, indeed, terms for what they wanted out of life). More often, when there were multiple kids Yamato would schedule them out for different times.

Tenten was his first appointment today. She had both hands wrapped around her mug of chai and was looking into the foam with an anguished expression. “I wanna kiss girls but the sex stuff scares me,” she whispered. “Is that normal?”

Yamato internally winced. The question “Am I normal?” was one that these teens asked him far too often.

“Please, remove ‘normal’ from your vocabulary,” Yamato told her. When she looked up at him, shocked, he gave her a faint smile. “If you try to match your life to some idealized pattern of behavior, you’ll always be measuring yourself against a standard that doesn’t really exist. People come up with words to describe themselves, but everyone is an individual. There are words that people sometimes use for themselves, and there’s often a separation between romantic feelings and sexual feelings.”

Tenten’s brow wrinkled. “Really?”

“Yes. For example, I’m on the asexual spectrum. Asexuals aren’t interested in sex. As a demisexual, I’m only interested in sex with someone I have a deep emotional connection with. That someone happens to be a man, so I’d be homoromantic and demisexual.”

“Homoromantic demisexual?” Tenten repeated, tasting the words. “Or homoromantic asexual?”

“Yes,” Yamato said. “Those are just terms, though. You can tell people or not, you can agree or not, things can change or not. The human condition isn’t set in stone.”

“Homoromantic asexual,” Tenten said again. She sounded amazed at the idea.

“Yes,” Yamato said. “Do you want to talk more about this, or do you want to think about things and talk later?”

“That,” Tenten said slowly. “The last one.”

“All right.” Yamato stood up when she did. “I’ll be here. Would you like a hug?”

Tenten stared at him. “What?”

Yamato held his arms away from his sides. “I like to offer hugs in case anyone feels like they need one. Or want one. I don’t see enough hugs in everyday life.”

“That’s true,” Tenten said quietly. She looked at her toes for a moment, then dove forward and wrapped her arms around Yamato’s chest. One of her hair buns smashed into his mouth, but he stayed silent and hugged her back.

“Thanks,” she said. She darted off, smiling to herself.

Yamato sat back down and snagged her cup of tea—he’d finished his own. He cracked open his book and made it through a few pages. After a while, as he knew someone would, another kid came up and sat down.

“Uh.”

Yamato looked up with raised eyebrows. “Hello, Naruto.”

“Hey, Captain Yamato.” Naruto twisted the hem of his shirt between his hands. The collar was ripped and there were some stains that Yamato hoped were crusted-over ramen. Yamato made a mental note to take Naruto clothes-shopping sometime in the near future. Out of his standard orange uniform he looked much smaller, though his hair still shone that irrepressible bright yellow. “So, how does this work?”

“Well, if you have some questions for me or you want to tell me something just to put it into words, you can,” Yamato said. “That’s how most people react.”

Naruto scraped his hand through the hair at the nape of his neck. “I’ve been hearing you help gay kids mostly?”

Yamato gave him a long look. “Your peers are working some things out for themselves. I know a bit about what they’re going through.”

“Sooooo you’re gay,” Naruto said.

Yamato decided that Naruto was going to have to work a little harder to understand how people identified themselves. “Would you like to learn a new word?”

Naruto’s face pinched into an expression of disgust. “Uh.”

“Demisexual,” Yamato said.

Naruto’s face pinched even tighter. “Uh.”

“It means I like people the more I bond with them.”

Naruto’s expression smoothed into pure confusion. “But that just makes sense.”

“No,” Yamato said. “Some people are attracted to people they’ve never met before, usually because they look or sound a certain way. They don’t have to know them very well in order to like them. Then they go on dates and that’s how they get to know them more.”

Naruto stared. “That’s. What? Why would you…?”

“The way people fall in love with each other varies,” Yamato said. 

“That’s weird,” Naruto said.

Yamato shrugged. “These are the kinds of things I normally talk about with your peers.” He sipped at Tenten’s abandoned tea. It had reached the delicate balance of lukewarm where it was almost too heavy and cold to drink. He’d have to finish it quickly unless he wanted to use a justu to warm it up. 

“Weird,” Naruto repeated, but he didn’t stand to go. He was staring into space, his hands loosely clasped on the table. For a moment, he looked like a thoughtful young man. It was an eerie illusion. Yamato focused on drinking Tenten’s chai.

Naruto’s gaze dropped to Yamato. “What does it mean when you like some people who’re girls and, uh, and a boy?”

Yamato’s ANBU training kept him from visibly reacting, but he mentally celebrated the fact that he’d won a free dinner off Kakashi for betting Naruto wasn’t completely gay or completely straight. “Bisexual,” he said. “There’s an argument for pansexual, too, but we can start with bisexual. That means you like boys and girls. You can tend to be more attracted to a particular gender and still be bi.”

“Bisexual and demisexual,” Naruto said. His brow wrinkled as he muttered to himself.

Yamato wasn’t able to suppress his smile at that. Every time he said a new vocab word, the kids had to say it to themselves. It was like watching them try on new coats, exchanging labels or settling into the new fit with an expression of wonder. This was a facet of life they often had never heard of before. Yamato felt a small surge of pride in the fact that yes, he was bringing about a sexual revolution in his own quiet way. The new generation of shinobi was learning that there were more words they could use to define themselves, if they chose to define themselves at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was surprisingly easy to hide a gay tryst from Danzo. The leader of ANBU looked at the world through heterosexual lenses and everyone was straight until proven otherwise. Kakashi and Tenzo were out on missions a lot, and their relationship—which neither of them chose to define as anything but monogamous and private and full of a lot of sex—occupied the spaces between work. Kakashi had genin to teach in addition to other jonin duties. Tenzo had people to kill and information to steal and a Godaime to guard. The vast amounts of intercourse they had when their schedules happened to overlap didn’t really show up on Danzo’s radar.

Rin, however, noticed. 

“Who’s that ANBU who’s always leaving your apartment at weird hours?” she asked Kakashi one day, and Guy overheard her and started screaming about youthful adventures.  
There were only so many times Kakashi could use substitution jutsu to escape. She was the Yellow Flash’s student, too, and eventually she caught up to him and managed to get him in a headlock.

“Tell me already, asshole!” she roared.

“Keep your screeching down,” Kakashi grunted. “Is Guy here?”

Rin released him and squinted in suspicion. “No. Why?”

“It’s a secret,” Kakashi said. “Well. According to the other party involved. And Guy can’t keep a secret to save his life.”

“Other party?” Rin said. She made finger air-quotes and repeated, “ ‘Other party’?”

“You know Danzo?” Kakashi said.

Rin nodded.

“He’s homophobic,” Kakashi said.

Rin nodded again. “Yeah. And? Everyone knows that he doesn’t tolerate fraternization of any kind but he especially hates when OH. Oh my god. Are you coming out to me?”

“No!” Kakashi said. “I’m not exclusively gay.”

Rin’s eyes opened even wider. “You can be gayish?”

Kakashi spread his arms and said, “You can be anything you wanna be, according to the guy I’m fucking. He says he’s not really gay either, he’s just really gay for me.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Yeah, he said ‘demi’ and started explaining it but then suddenly I fell on his face with my face and he shut up.”

Rin snorted and punched Kakashi on the arm. Hard. “You’re a dick. He didn’t do anything to deserve you.”

“Nah,” Kakashi said, rubbing the bruise that was probably already forming under his jonin blacks. This was going much better than he’d expected.

“So who is he?” Rin asked. “ANBU, obviously, since he’s worried about Danzo.”

“Yeah, you may have seen him come through the hospital. I call him Tenzo, but maybe it’s not that anymore. He’s the guy who can use the First Hokage’s jutsu,” Kakashi said.

Rin’s mouth dropped open. “Oh gods. I know who you’re talking about. Kinoe. Is that even legal? He’s a kid!”

“He’s nineteen,” Kakashi said, mentally adding “ _now_ ” to the end of that sentence.

Rin pointed an accusing finger. “Cradle-robber!”

“ _He_ jumped _me_ ,” Kakashi said, raising his hands defensively. “Out of nowhere, too. I was too sexy for him to resist.”

“That poor man.”

Kakashi smiled a small, secret smile behind his mask. “We’re gonna move in together. In two weeks.”

“I weep for him,” Rin said. “But really. I’ve never known you to keep anyone around for more than a month or two. Except me and Guy, obviously.”

“Obviously.” Rin crossed her arms, waiting. Kakashi sighed in defeat and admitted, “I maybe kind of like him.”

Rin smiled from ear to ear. “That’s marvelous.”

“He told me he’s liked me since he was eleven,” Kakashi added. “Not in a sex way, though, that didn’t show up until he was like seventeen and he finally asked me out. Late bloomer, I guess. Or it’s related to that demi thing I didn’t listen to.”

“Okay, eleven? Wow,” Rin said. “Maybe keep that to yourself, it sounds weird.”

“I _have_ to, are you not listening to the thing I’m saying about Danzo and—”

“All right, I get it,” Rin snapped. “I won’t tell anyone.” She darted forward into one of those quick, tight hugs that Kakashi never saw coming, and then she leapt for the trees. 

“Congratulations!” she called before she blurred away.

Kakashi closed his eye and slumped in relief. Rin didn’t care. That was all that had really mattered, since she was the only person who could make his life hellish if she didn’t approve of his choices. Of course she’d be fine with something like this, though. Anything that made him marginally less depressed was a good thing in her eyes. And boy, did Tenzo ever make him less depressed…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tea shop was getting too crowded to meet in the daytime, so Yamato had a quiet word with the owner and reserved it for an evening. He let his appointments know what was happening and when he showed up a few minutes late, thankful his high-necked shirt could cover up the hickies (Kakashi had just come home from a weeklong mission), he found a mob of kids waiting for him.

“Ah,” Yamato said.

Dozens of heads turned to him. He recognized a lot of Naruto’s classmates, including Sakura and Sai, but there were some older chunin present. There were even a couple wary jonin who looked as though they’d joined the crowd simply to see what the fuss was about.

“Excuse me,” Yamato said, stepping through the group. He grew his fingertip into the store’s keyhole (he had permission from the owner for this tactic, not that locking mechanisms mattered much in a ninja village) and let everyone file past him into the shop. He shut the door behind him and lit a few lamps around the store, then sat cross-legged on the counter. People stood or leaned or chakra-stuck themselves to various surfaces. Then all heads turned to him.

“Hello,” he said. “This is an, ah, informational meeting for anyone who is curious about learning about alternative sexualities or lifestyles. By ‘alternative,’ I mean anything that is not one cis man and one cis woman having a lot of children together and raising them to be shinobi. Does everyone know what ‘cis’ means?”

The night continued from there. Yamato surprised himself at how much he had to say on the subject of perceived gender, sexuality, gender roles, and lifestyle expectations placed on potential ninja children.

Then Ino raised her hand. “Um, Captain Yamato?”

“Yes?” he said.

“What about, like, alternative lifestyles that have to do with, uh.” Everyone was looking at her. Ino’s cheeks darkened to pink but she kept her chin up and said, “Like, bondage type stuff. Where you’re tied up but everyone agrees to it?”

There were some quiet hums of interest from various corners of the room, but the little section that Yamato was starting to think of as his Ace Brigade looked somewhat panicked. Tenten and Lee traded looks and Hinata ducked her head with a squeak.

“Well, I don’t know a lot about that,” Yamato said. “Perhaps I should be clear, I’m a cis man, homoromantic, and demisexual. I’m not a part of any BDSM community, though I’m sure they exist. Somewhere. I’m not sure how to go about contacting them. BDSM is the acronym used for the practices of bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, and masochism, I know that much. I can do some research into the practice itself and recommend books to people who would like to learn more, does that work?”

Ino nodded, looking satisfied. 

“All right,” Yamato said. He looked to Sai, who was unsurprisingly taking notes. “Sai, would you mind if we used some of your supplies to make lists? If any of you want information, leave contact information and a few bullet points you’re particularly interested in.”

“I can make a sign for our next meeting,” Sai said softly.

Yamato blinked at him, then looked around the rest of the room. “Do you all want to meet again?”

There was a chorus of affirmative answers.

“More often!” Kiba called from the back.

“Yes!” Lee seconded.

Yamato smoothed away a smile with his hand. “I have missions. If you want to meet on your own, though, you can work that out yourselves. I can ask the tea shop owner for, ah, let’s say every other Sunday evening? Unless you want to meet somewhere else.”

“This is nice,” Neji said from his spot in the front row.

“Yeah, I like this shop,” said one of the jonin Yamato didn’t know.

“All right,” Yamato said. “Well. So long as we keep this a safe space and don’t ever reach the point of arguing with people trying to talk them out of their lifestyle goals, I think regular meetings here will work fine. Talk amongst yourselves and leave information with Sai if you’d like. Thank you for listening.”

A few people clapped for him as he pushed himself down from the counter. It was surprising. Tell them a few things about the possibilities of subverting relationship expectations and suddenly he deserved applause? They should have learned a few of these ideas much earlier. Perhaps he could talk to Sai about coming up with some kind of sexuality pamphlet to hand around. And how was he going to find books on BDSM? Konoha library was good for jutsu texts and ninja storybooks and porn, but in-depth explorations of safe, kinky sex?

“Captain Yamato?”

Sakura was waving him over. Yamato thought about where he’d left Kakashi, with a stack of porn and the last of the oatmeal cookies, and sighed. Those cookies would be gone by the time he got home. “Yes, Sakura?”

“Do you think you could come help me give a talk on safe sex next time you’re in town?” she asked with an embarrassed smile.

Yamato kept his face blank. “Why.”

“Um. So, you’re homoromantic,” she said, and he heard the emphasis on homo.

“You’re assuming quite a few things,” he said.

Sakura shrugged. “I can kind of tell you and Kakashi are a thing.”

Yamato’s eyes narrowed. “That’s very private. By agreement between the two of us.”

He could tell his face was scary because Sakura visibly paled. “I’m not going to tell anyone!” she stammered. “I just think it’s good to have another perspective! I know it from the girl’s point of view and you know it from the boy’s.”

Yamato considered. If it had been anyone but Sakura, he would have turned them down. But this was Sakura. “All right.”

She smiled in relief. “Thanks! Thank you so much!”

“Not at all. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Yamato nodded to her and a few other people who were eyeing him, and then he phased into the floor and carried himself several blocks away before reappearing. He made it home in time to fight Kakashi for the last cookie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamato knew he’d had advantages when it came to tracking down books. He was a shinobi, first of all; he knew how to get information and act on it. He’d actively sought out data on relationships that fell outside of heterosexuality, and he’d collected any books on the subject of alternative lifestyles that he could find. Kakashi was disappointed by how rarely hot, descriptive sex made an appearance, for all that the books often dealt with sex.

“Why’s everyone talking so much?” Kakashi asked.

“Because communication is an important part of a relationship,” Yamato said. “Why does that surprise you? We talk.”

“Yeah, but this is fiction.” Kakashi waved the book. “Everyone should be ramming it in and having simultaneous screaming orgasms by now.”

“It isn’t fiction. It’s a book on using BDSM to cope with past trauma and loss of agency.”

Kakashi blinked. “Oh. Shit. I’m sticking with _Makeout Paradise_.”

“You do that,” Yamato said, and took back _Knot Free_.

Kakashi frowned behind his mask. “Is this personal research? Like, are you into the idea? Am I going to have to get my dick pierced and buy handcuffs?”

“No,” Yamato said. “I just think it’s interesting.”

Kakashi cocked his head. “Huh.”

“What?”

“I dunno. Sexy research for no reason sounds suspicious.”

“I’m not going to tie you up any time soon,” Yamato said, smirking faintly. “And you know you could get out of it no problem anyway.”

“What’s it _for_ though?” Kakashi asked.

Yamato considered his options. He could lie, and since he was a horrible liar it would be obvious and Kakashi would mock him a lot and then keep asking. He could tell the truth and Kakashi would still mock him, but at least everything would be out in the open.

“I have apparently acquired a reputation around the village,” Yamato said.

“Oh really?” Kakashi sounded both amused and condescending. “I hope it isn’t worse than mine, I have an image to maintain as the weirdest ninja here.”

“It hardly matters,” Yamato said. “You win that prize hands-down. But I think that the chunin and jonin are starting to see me as some kind of… queer confessor.”

What little was visible of Kakashi’s face went blank. Yamato counted as he blinked once. Twice. Three times.

“You’re a gay den mother,” Kakashi said.

Yamato sighed. “Yes.”

“And you’re going to have them all get freaky with each other.” Kakashi aimed a finger at _Knot Free_. His eye widened in sudden horror and he asked, “Holy shit, _never_ tell Naruto, he is _not_ allowed to fuck anyone with ropes and leather and—”

“ _No_ ,” Yamato snapped. “I’ve had a few people, _not Naruto_ , come to me with… questions of a kinky nature. I’m used to researching topics similar to this, where there isn’t a lot of easy-to-find information and there’s a stigma around the whole subject, so I figured I could help out by reading books before I recommend them.”

“Oh my god,” Kakashi said quietly. Then, louder, “And you like this kind of job?”

Yamato shrugged. “I can do this for them. I didn’t have anyone when I was going through a sexuality crisis, and some of these kids have it worse than I ever did. At least I’m cis and vanilla—”

“Incredibly vanilla,” Kakashi corrected him. “So very vanilla.”

Yamato glared. “Yes. But they—”

“Vanilla bean.”

“Yes, now shut up. We both know neither of us want to be tied up to explore unresolved traumas through sex but maybe some of these young adults do want that.”

Kakashi winced. “I really don’t like thinking of them fucking each other. _Naruto’s_ around them all the time. The kid doesn’t even care about porn, there’s no way he should be thinking about sex with other human beings.”

Yamato rolled his eyes heavenward. “You started this conversation. I’d like to point out that you were… experimenting pretty heavily when you were his age. And sex isn’t the main goal here, though the information may be useful _years from now_ ”—he gave Kakashi a Look—“when they _are_ sexually active. It’s more about getting these kids to understand more about themselves and how they can—”

“Yeah, okay, I get it,” Kakashi said. He scrabbled through the stack of porn novels on the coffee table and dragged one out at random. “Quiet reading time now.”

Yamato smiled down at the page before him. “All right.”

After a while, Yamato kicked his feet up and set them on Kakashi’s lap. Neither one of them reacted when Kakashi started giving him a one-handed foot rub.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tasōtō are wooden pagodas with an odd number of stories. Yeah, Yamato reads architecture books in his spare time.
> 
> Kakashi doesn’t self-identify here but I think of him as pansexual. Also, I use asexual at one point as a catch-all for asexual, demi, and grey-ace (by which I mean Yamato's "Ace Brigade" of Tenten, Lee, and Hinata doesn't necessarily contain all asexuals).
> 
> I feel like Kakashi is one of those people who can read sexist/dub-con erotica and differentiate between fiction written to get the reader off and things the reader actually wants to happen in a relationship.
> 
> The thesis of _Knot Free_ , which isn’t a real book, is loosely based on a Cracked article about BDSM rituals if you’re curious. http://www.cracked.com/article_22252_7-things-50-shades-gets-wrong-about-bdsm-from-expert.html


	11. Ino is The Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yamanaka Ino: Everybody’s Wingman is an excellent headcanon my friend came up with. I don’t know where it came from, we just decided Ino’s got everyone’s back now. Except Neji, because she thinks she’s prettier than he is and he could never tolerate wrong-minded thinking like that.

Sakura was sitting by the gates of Konoha, her face frozen in an expression of worry mixed with rage. It wasn’t an attractive look on her, Ino noted. Normally that would have given her a little spark of satisfaction, knowing Sakura didn’t look her best, but now…

“They’re all back by now, you know,” Ino said. She shifted her basket of flowers to dangle from her fingertips. “All the boys who’re coming back, I mean.”

“Fuh-fuck off,” Sakura said, scowling. She wiped at her eyes quickly.

Ino raised her eyebrows. “Potty-mouth, wow. Did your sensei teach you that?”

Sakura’s mouth twitched into a smirk. “Yes.” Then her lips compressed. She hugged her knees closer to her chest and pressed her spine against the wall and glared at the ground.

Ino considered walking away. She’d gotten the poppies her papa needed for the new bouquets. Her errand was almost over and she and Sakura weren’t really friends anyway, not anymore—

Wait. They’d only really stopped being friends because neither one of them wanted to surrender their love for Sasuke. But Sasuke, that beautiful, tragic, brooding, turns-out-he’s-horrible boy, had surrendered his love for the village. He was _missing nin_ now. There was no reason for her to hate Sakura, and no reason for Sakura to hate her.

Ino thought about back when they were little and she’d had Sakura to tease, how Sakura had braided her hair for her and taught her some really fun civilian games that were _almost_ as good as Yamanaka games. Shikamaru and Choji just weren’t the same. They’d leave her out of things and talk behind her back—well, Shikamaru would. Neither one of them could strike that balance of teasing affection that she’d had with Sakura. Choji was too shy around her and Shikamaru was indifferent. Only Sakura had looked her in the eye and laughed at her jokes and pulled her pigtails before running away, just for the thrill of the chase.

She squatted down next to Sakura, setting the basket aside. “If you don’t wipe that look off your face, it’s going to stick that way.”

Sakura squinted up at her. “What do _you_ care, Pigface?”

Ino jerked back, surprised that they were back to this. She shot back, “Your forehead hasn’t gotten any smaller, I don’t know why you’re calling me ugly names” but her voice wobbled more than it should. Didn’t Sakura realize they didn’t need to hate each other anymore?

Sakura curled up tighter and looked away.

“Come on,” Ino said after a moment. “Choji’s mom made cookies and gave me some.”

“Why’re you being nice to me?” Sakura said softly. “You hate me. And my team… I don’t even have a team anymore. They’re both gone. I’m barely a ninja anymore.”

Ino reached out and ruffled Sakura’s short hair. Sakura twitched at the touch and stared up with her celery-green eyes in shock. 

“The whole village is your team, stupid,” Ino told her. “Come on. Papa will be happy to see you again, he still calls you the smart one.” Ino grabbed her flower basket and straightened up, shaking the kinks out of her knees.

“It’s been a really long time,” Sakura said, but she was pushing herself to her feet.

“Not so long,” Ino said. As she walked beside Sakura through the streets of a slowly-waking Konoha, she wondered how long it would take for them to get back to being friends again. They both needed someone to vent with about what a fucking disappointment Sasuke was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ino dug her sewing needle into the cloth. “So Choji’s cooking for us?”

“Yeah. His mom’s supervising, though,” Shikamaru said. He was sprawled bonelessly on the back porch of the Akimichi family home, one leg dangling over the side.

Ino pulled her needle through again. “Do we have any say on the menu?”

Shikamaru gave her a long, unimpressed stare from where he was reinforcing the seams of a pair of his mission-issue pants. “What do _you_ think?”

Ino sighed. “Yeah, I should know better. I hope it’s at least something I can take home for Papa. He keeps forgetting to buy more pork and vegetables and there’s only so often we can order take-out.” She set another stitch on the worn-out hem of Choji’s pants. Puberty had hit; the pants were shrinking up his legs and it was getting silly-looking. Getting Choji to try on new clothes was a lesson in futility and so far he only seemed to be growing up. Better to make the pants as long as possible until they eventually stopped fitting. 

Shikamaru shook out his own pants and inspected his work. “I’m better at this than you, you know.”

“Whatever,” Ino snorted. She chucked one of her mission skirts at him. “Patch that.”

“Busted the ass again?” Shikamaru said.

Ino stuck her tongue out. “Fuck off.” 

Shikamaru picked a colored patch close to the color of Ino’s skirt. “Sakura’s bad habits are rubbing off on you.”

Ino smiled. “Jealous I have friends outside the Ino-Shika-Cho Brigade?”

Shikamaru didn’t even make an effort to answer; he rolled his eyes so hard that Ino had to laugh. Of course he didn’t care.

“Ino!” Choji called from the kitchen.

“Yeah?” she gasped, still fighting off giggles.

“You wanted to bake?”

“Oh my gosh!” Ino dumped Choji’s pants in Shikamaru’s lap and rushed in. “Don’t start without me! I have a recipe!”

“So I’m supposed to mend everything?” Shikamaru complained.

Ino poked her head around the corner. “You _said_ you’re better at it than me.”

“This is why I don’t volunteer for things,” Shikamaru grumbled. He peered at Ino’s stitches, snorted at how wide and loose they were, and started undoing all of her work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“What now?” Lee grunted.

“Eight hundred sixty eight,” Ino said. She twisted a final lock of her hair around the end of her braid and dug for a hairtie.

“Right!” Lee said, and dipped down again. And again. And again.

Yamanakas had to be incredibly good at multi-tasking. Their clan jutsu required the ability to separate pieces of their minds, performing several tasks at once as they invaded another person’s headspace. Many points of mental attack were much more effective because most minds couldn’t track more than one or two things at a time. Ino could keep nine tasks running through her mind at once if she had to. Counting Rock Lee’s push-ups for him while she braided her hair and balanced the books at her father’s flower shop wasn’t even pushing herself. 

“What now?” Lee panted.

“Eight hundred and ninety four,” Ino said. “Six more and then you can switch arms.”

“Right!” Lee said. And he dipped down again.

The sun was warm on Ino’s bare shoulders and soaked into the dark purple of her shirt and skirt. As long as she sat upwind of Lee she got a nice grassy smell of the earth, and every now and then a breeze blew by. It was a very pleasant way to spend a free afternoon.

“Hey, Ino!”

Ino looked up from the account book on her lap and smiled. “Hi, Tenten.”

“Want to work on taijutsu with me?” Tenten said.

“I’ll work with you!” Lee offered.

“You’re doing one-armed push-ups,” Ino reminded him. “Nine hundred on each side. And you should switch now, by the way. You’re three over.”

“Oops!” Lee gasped, and he swapped arms. “I’ll have to do three extra on this side, too!”

“Come on, Tenten,” Ino said. “As long as we stay in sight of Lee, I can keep track of you both.” It was still just three things to track. Though she’d all but memorized the final numbers for the past month, and she knew how to calculate percentages in her head to accommodate for tax…

“What’re you muttering?” Tenten asked her as she kicked out at Ino’s knee. 

Ino stepped forward so the other girl’s foot slipped past her thigh, then aimed a blow at her head with an elbow. “Income tax this year is seven percent,” she said. “Right?”

Tenten gave her a weird look as she dodged back. “Uh, I guess?”

Ino shook her head and let that particular train of thought fade away.

“What now?” Lee called.

“Seventy six,” Ino said, and then she ducked Tenten’s punch, blocked the knee coming up towards her face, and rolled away from any other blow that might be coming towards her.

“Almost got you!” Tenten laughed.

“Fat chance!” Ino said around a smile. She dove forward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kiba rushed up to Ino and Hinata just as they were about to step into the day spa.

“Ino!” Kiba wheezed. Akamaru panted at his heels.

“Yeah?” Ino said, raising an eyebrow.

“Can we play fetch today?” he asked. 

Ino exchanged a look with Hinata. “Uh. I’ve got plans today, sorry Kiba. And sorry, Akamaru.”

Akamaru whined. He and Kiba wore twin puppy-dog expressions of grief. As the teammate with a human vocabulary, Kiba was the one to say, “Awwww maaaan.”

“Tomorrow,” Ino promised.

Kiba gave her a squinting, sidelong look. “Even if it’s raining?”

Ino winced and automatically looked towards the sky. It was almost the rainy season… She gave in and sighed. “Yes. Even if it’s raining.”

“Yes!” Kiba punched the air and danced in a circle, then rushed away. “C’mon Akamaru, I know where there’s a weird thing to roll in.”

“Oh gods,” Ino groaned.

“It’s, um. It’s nice of you to, to play with Kiba,” Hinata offered. Her hands twisted around each other and she looked off to the side, her strange pale eyes hidden beneath her lashes.

Ino shrugged. “I mean, all I’m really doing is waiting to get a mission from Asuma. And I help out at the flower shop for Papa if I have to. I have to get outside _some_ time, though.” She led the way into the spa.

“But don’t you, don’t you see Shikamaru and Choji?” Hinata asked. “Outside of missions, I mean?”

Ino shrugged. “They’re kind of always together. Makes me feel like a third wheel.”

Hinata signed in with the spa attendant and turned those pearly eyes on Ino. “But you, you’re pretty popular with everyone, Ino. I mean, um. I can’t see you being the third wheel _anywhere_.”

Ino pulled Hinata into a one-armed hug and squeezed her tightly before picking up the complimentary robe and towel. “Awww, Hinata, you’re sweet.”

Hinata blushed. “I, I, oh. Thank you.”

“We’re not here to talk about me, though,” Ino continued. “We’re here to talk about everyone else. So. Dish. What’ve you seen lately?”

Hinata, unexpectedly, blushed the deepest pink Ino had ever seen. “Oh, um. Uh. W-well. Uh.”

“Oh shit, Hinata, was it something filthy?” Ino said.

Hinata shook her head wildly, hair flying around her shoulders. “No! No, uh. I just. Ran into. Um. Naruto’s back.”

Ino smirked. “Oooooh. Well. Remind me, can Byakugan see through clothes?”

Hinata squeaked and somehow dredged up an even deeper shade of red.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“He said I was pretty,” Ino argued over the noise of the early-morning coffeeshop rush.

“Sai is _weird as hell_ ,” Sakura said. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Go hang out with him if you want, he didn’t call me pretty.”

“That’s because he’s weird as hell,” Ino told her, winking.

Sakura flapped a hand. “Oh, whatever. I don’t need an ego boost from him. I’m just saying, watch out.”

Ino shrugged. “He’s got good taste in uniform gear.” She patted her own bare stomach. “I’m telling you, it’s comfortably breezy and it’s a great distraction tactic.”

Sakura gave Ino a very unimpressed look. “He’ll get way too introspective if you’re late. He doesn’t get people, you know. He’s trying hard but he doesn’t _get_ them.”

“He just needs some help,” Ino said. She picked up her to-go tea at the bar and waved to Sakura. “Have a nice shift at the hospital!”

“Yeah, thanks,” Sakura sighed. Her coffee was twice as tall as Ino’s drink and Sakura held the cup as if it was a lifeline. Ino giggled at her friend’s plight and walked to the Half-Shirt Emporium. She was a few minutes early but Sai was already there, dressed in—

“What’re you wearing?” Ino asked.

Sai looked up at her, then down at his clothes. “Um. Civilian clothes?”

“Civilian _potato sacks_ maybe,” Ino sniffed. “That’s all you have when you’re out of uniform? No, don’t worry, it’s fine. We’ll get you something decent here. I have a coupon.” She waved a little slip of paper that would give her three half-shirts for the price of a whole shirt.

Sai nodded and gave her his strange little smile. “That’s very responsible. Thank you.”

“No problem,” Ino said, patting him on the back.

“It’s also bold of you to wear so many midriff-baring shirts, considering the fact that people will invariably compare your torso to other ninja torsos they may have encountered,” Sai said.

Ino blinked. Her eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I suppose that would be a problem. It would be a _worse_ problem if you thought I’d be considered in worse shape than you.”

Sai inspected her face carefully. His eyes roamed from her raised eyebrows to her tight mouth. After a moment, he nodded. “Yes. Fortunately, that is not the case.”

Ino’s smile returned full-force. “Wonderful! Let’s try on shirts!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shino was sitting in a tree, as he often was. Privately, Ino thought he liked to pretend to be a wasp nest for some unknowable reason but there was no way was she going to ask.

“Hey, Shino,” she said.

A small nod was her only answer. She was going to get a crick in her neck looking up at him like this if he didn’t come down soon.

“I stole the camera for the day,” she said.

_That_ earned her an impenetrable, bespectacled look. 

“The official camera,” Ino clarified. As if there was more than one camera in the village.

Shino stood up, hands tucked in his pockets, and walked down the tree trunk to stand in front of her. “Why?”

“I thought we could take pictures of cool bugs,” Ino said. “I brought my notebook so we can keep track of the photos, too, and if you know any facts I can write them down! It’s fine if you don’t know—”

“We know what kind of bugs we have,” Shino said. “They are a part of our clan.”

“Well yeah,” Ino said. “But do you know what other kinds of bugs there are? And I don’t actually know what kinds of bugs you work with, so it’d be awesome to learn about.”

Shino’s little black glasses gave nothing away. Eventually, he said, “You think Aburame bugs are awesome.”

“…Learning about them would be awesome,” Ino said diplomatically.

Shino inclined his head. “Very well.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Why is Temari so mean?” Shikamaru sighed, flopping his torso across the counter and almost upsetting a bushel of daisies. 

Ino snagged the twine holding the flowers together and pulled them closer to her. “Watch it.” She went back to weaving the green stems together. They needed ten daisy crowns for a birthday party in an hour and she was only through four.

“So I kicked her ass at the chunin exams,” Shikamaru continued. “That was years ago. She made chunin and she’s the Sand ambassador and her brother’s the Hokage and we won a fucking war. I don’t get why she’s still giving me so much shit.”

“What are you talking about?” Ino said. “She flirts with you constantly.” She snipped a stem, tucked it out of sight, and stacked another crown on the pile. Halfway done.

“Wait, what?”

Ino looked up at Shikamaru’s bewildered expression. “Dude. She wants to take your virginity. Like, now.”

Shikamaru’s eyebrows shot up. “Uhhhhhh.”

Ino smirked. She snagged the strap of her purse and dragged it over, fiddled in one of the deep, zippered pockets, and eventually dropped a packet of condoms right next to Shikamaru’s face. “Go get her,” she said with a wink.

Shikamaru’s eyes widened as he stared at the condoms. “Uhhhhhh.”

“Out!” Ino snapped.

Shikamaru grabbed the condoms and ran. She and Temari had been writing letters back and forth for a few months now, ever since Ino saw her and Shikamaru together and heard Temari make fun of Shikamaru’s ponytail. Temari was unabashedly blunt in her letters, and highly descriptive. Ino certainly didn’t want to think about her teammate that way, but she privately thought that he was in for some pretty crazy antics if he followed his current trajectory.

Ino mentally patted herself on the back, reminded herself to buy more condoms, and went back to the sixth daisy crown. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Naruto!” Sakura barked.

“Naruto, hey, come on out!” Ino called in much friendlier tones. “I haven’t seen you in a while but I hear you’re lookin’ pretty good these days!” She adjusted the ratty T-shirt she was wearing and tried to channel seduction while she was dressed for what was, basically, an adventure in washing a wild animal.

Sakura gave her a dirty look. “It won’t work on him.”

“It will totally work on him,” Ino said. 

“He’s addicted to Sasuke, I’m telling you it won’t work,” Sakura said. 

Ino thought for a moment. “Okay. Hey, Sakura, you know how bad Sasuke is at kissing?”

Sakura blinked, and then a wicked smile stretched across her face to match Ino’s own grin. “Oh, no, Ino, please tell me how bad he is.”

“It’s like he doesn’t know what tongues are for. Like, at all,” Ino said. “He just tries to unroll that carpet in your mouth and leave it there. He has no _idea_ where his hands are supposed to go, either. I had to give him a few pointers, steer him to all the right places, you know.”

“WHAT THE HELL?” Naruto yelled from his hiding place. “YOU’VE BEEN KISSING SASUKE?”

“Gottim,” Sakura said, and she blurred out of sight. There was a thud and a yelp, and then several more thuds, and then Sakura emerged from the treeline with Naruto’s head stuffed under her arm. He was flailing wildly but her grip was solid. Ino gave her a thumbs up.

“LET ME GO!” Naruto yelled. His voice carried remarkably well considering he was wedged in Sakura’s armpit. “SAKURA, I DON’T NEED A BATH!”

“You totally do,” Ino said.

“INO, YOU JERK!” Naruto howled. “WHY’D YOU SAY THAT SHIT ABOUT SASUKE?” Naruto’s flailing grew even more intense. Sakura’s hold didn’t falter.

“What, are you saying he’s _good_ at kissing?” Ino said cheerfully. “Have you two locked lips since you hauled his scrawny ass back home?”

Naruto’s flailing ceased long enough for Sakura to throw him in the river. He came up sputtering and got a faceful of soap. Sakura held his arms and Ino rubbed shampoo through his hair, wincing at the tangles and scabs that caught at her fingers. 

The comb she’d brought with her broke halfway through. That was fine by her; she couldn’t take much more of Naruto’s howling. Sakura grimly held him still. Neither of them even bothered trying to take his pajamas off. They’d caught him early in the morning (also known as 11am—Naruto’s spare time involved a lot of sleeping now that there wasn’t a war to prepare for) so at least he wasn’t wearing his training uniform. Yamato was in charge of getting that clean while they were giving Naruto his monthly bath.

“Thanks for this, Ino,” Sakura said as she shoved Naruto underwater to rinse him.

“No problem,” Ino said, smiling. She scratched under the cloth she’d tied around her hair to protect it from this filthy chore. “Whew. Almost done.”

Naruto popped up, water streaming from his nose. “YOU’RE KILLING MEEEEEE,” he wailed.

“You’re _fine_ , idiot,” Sakura said. “Get out of here. And if this gets any tougher, it’ll be a weekly adventure instead of just monthly.”

“Yeah, yep, got it,” Naruto said quickly. “I promise I’ll stay clean, Sakura.”

“Oh, Naruto, I got you something,” Ino said, pushing herself to the surface of the water with her chakra. She jogged over to where she’d dropped a few shopping bags and scooped them up. “Here. You should be eating better. You have to take care of yourself! Eat your vegetables, not just protein!”

Naruto’s face was twisted in disgust, but he took the bags from her. “Yeah, okay.”

Sakura smacked him on the arm. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Oh. Thanks, Ino,” Naruto said. He gave an awkward bow and looked to Sakura for approval. The minute she nodded, he sprinted off. 

Ino cocked her head as she watched him leave. The pajama pants and T-shirt he slept in didn’t leave much to the imagination when they were wet.

Sakura smacked Ino on the shoulder. “Eyes to yourself.”

“Like I’d ever,” Ino laughed, and she linked her arm with Sakura’s. “We probably need to go take a bath now. He got us both pretty gross.”

Sakura smiled up at her. “Sounds perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve actually been writing Naruto inaccurately in every single fic I’ve ever posted. He should be speaking in all-caps at all times.


	12. Leaf Taxes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's tax season in Konoha.

“Kakashi-senpai, where are your receipts?” Tenzo called. “I’m filing taxes today.”

There was the tell-tale sound of absolutely no movement.

“Kakashi?”

When he went looking, all he found was an open window in their bedroom. 

They’d been living together for almost a year now and it wasn’t much of a surprise. Even so, “Fuck,” Tenzo muttered to himself. Paying taxes was hard enough without trying to figure out Kakashi’s income and what could be written off as a reasonable business expense (absolutely everything could be written off except the sex toys and the porn, and even then Tenzo was trying to figure out how to spin _Makeout Paradise: Deluxe Illustrated Edition_ as a work tool). Tenzo had an organized file that he double-checked every month. Kakashi had the pockets of his flak vest, his spare flak vest, and all three pairs of his pants. Tenzo went through all the pockets he could whenever he did Kakashi’s laundry but something always escaped him. 

Tenzo gave up for the moment and sat himself down to work out how much he owed Konoha this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The teaching ninja with the large facial scar, Iruka-sensei, was working at the finance office when Tenzo walked in with his documents.

“Morning,” Iruka said. There was no recognition on his face, but then there was no reason for him to know Tenzo. He’d never seen Tenzo without a mask on.

“Good morning,” Tenzo said. He held out his manila envelope. “I’m here to turn in my taxes.”

Iruka blinked. “Uh. Wow. Really?”

Tenzo frowned. “Yes?”

“You realize no one does those, right?” Iruka said.

“I did them,” Tenzo said.

Iruka took the envelope and weighed it in his hands for a moment. “Impressive.”

“No, just part of my duty,” Tenzo said. He hesitated. “What do you mean, no one does them?”

“You are the second person to turn in your taxes,” Iruka said. “I turned mine in before you.”

“But they’re due by the end of the week,” Tenzo said, puzzled. “Is there usually a rush?”

“No,” Iruka said. “No one pays their taxes.”

Tenzo stared. “This is my first time paying them, but I thought they were mandatory.”

“Oh, they are,” Iruka said. He dropped Tenzo’s envelope into a bin. The hollow flop as it hit the bottom proved Iruka’s point; no one else had their taxes in the bin.

Life outside of ANBU made very little sense. He was still an ANBU operative, of course, but since he’d moved out of the barracks and into an apartment with Kakashi, he’d also taken control of his own finances for the first time. He’d been on missions since he was ten years old but this was the first time he’d dealt with landlords and electric bills and now taxes.

“So it’s mandatory but not enforced?” Tenzo said. 

Iruka shrugged, his mouth twisted in either disgust or hidden humor. “We’re shinobi. It’s hard to make us do things we don’t want to do.”

“But we make money, as organized by the village. And the village has to take some of that money, or else we wouldn’t have public services.”

Iruka suddenly looked thoughtful. He leaned in. Recognizing the signal, Tenzo leaned closer as well. 

“I do my students’ taxes for them,” Iruka said. “The ones who don’t have parents? And the ones who have civilian parents, I have a flyer that goes home. Civilians actually pay their taxes, though, so those kids tend to pay up. They file with the civilian office, though. A lot of shinobi tax law is based on where you’re living, so—”

“Living with a civilian gets you civilian-level taxes,” Tenzo said. “I see.”

“It’s a tax cheat,” Iruka sighed. “Same with the big families. If someone lives in the Hyuuga compound, they pay the bulk Hyuuga taxes that the entire clan turns in as one entity. It’s a pretty fixed rate, too, only adjusted for inflation. But the taxes get paid, so no one really complains. Forget trying to get jonin to pay up.” He rolled his eyes. “Our tax inspectors are career-genin. Barely leave the village, their only missions are four-man teams led by jonin, and they have just enough training to protect themselves if they have to but they’re never making it any higher up the ninja ranking ladder.”

“Interesting,” Tenzo said.

Iruka sat back in his seat and smirked. “I don’t know about interesting, but it is annoying. Konoha runs pretty well on the Will of Fire but the Will of Fire doesn’t fund repairs or child services or art.”

“Who are the current tax inspectors?” Tenzo asked.

“Classified,” Iruka said. For the first time he sounded like a shinobi rather than a friendly clerk. Above the scar across his nose, his eyes were hard.

“Ah. Thank you for your time,” Tenzo said. He gave a small half-bow, since there was no way that bowing could make him seem rude, and he backed up a few steps towards the door. “I hope your job gets easier.”

“Couldn’t get much easier than an empty office on a Tuesday afternoon,” Iruka said. He’d slipped back into friendly clerk mode with ease. Tenzo was impressed at the transition. He should learn how to turn danger on and off in his features. It was a valuable skill in derailing conversation.

“Thank you,” Tenzo said again, and left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They came to him. Iruka must have said something, because there was a knock on the door twenty minutes after Tenzo returned from a mission in Wave Country. He slung a towel around his shoulders—it had rained the entire journey back and all he wanted was to feel dry again—and answered it. There were two people with clipboards waiting for him.

“Kinoe?” the taller one said. His dirty blonde hair and the pale eyes behind his rimless spectacles indicated there was some Yamanaka in him.

“Yes,” Tenzo said.

“We’ve heard you’re interested in a career in tax inspection,” said the shorter one, a woman with a shaved head.

“Yes,” Tenzo said. “I am currently very busy, though, and I wouldn’t want tax inspection to take away from my other work.”

The man and the woman exchanged a look. 

“Um,” the man said.

“Please help us,” the woman burst out. “No one chunin or above’ll talk to us except Iruka. And he said you could help?”

Tenzo scrubbed a hand through his still-damp hair and sighed. “All right, come in.”

He made them tea and listened to their woes and was poring over the village’s tax records for the past fifteen years when Kakashi came home.

“Yo, Tenzo, who’re these guys?” Kakashi said as he climbed in through the window. He was as drenched as Tenzo had been, and he shook himself like one of his dogs, scattering water all over the kitchen.

“Kakashi-senpai, this is Yamanaka Shinichiro and Ozeki Nao.” Tenzo pointed to the man and the woman in turn, then added, “They’re the village tax inspectors.”

Kakashi’s one visible eyebrow shot up. “I see.”

“Go dry off in the bathroom,” Tenzo said. Both genin were staring in awe-struck confusion. They would probably start prying the minute Kakashi was out of sight, but Tenzo was good at deflecting. It was none of their business, after all. 

“Yeah,” Kakashi said, but he sat down with his back to the wall instead. His eye stayed fixed on Shinichiro and Nao.

Tenzo gave up on getting Kakashi to do anything useful and turned back to the tax inspectors. “As I was saying, we could perhaps call out some of the worst offenders? It’s hard to calculate, I know, but I know the mission-assignment habits for many ninja in the village. I can clarify if someone is meeting their community service quota and can get a write-off. I’m not sure how much a write-off they’re allowed, though.”

“No one gets a _full_ write-off,” Nao said. “Except that Uzumaki boy. But he’s gone now.” She ran a hand over her bald head in a habit that Tenzo was starting to realize was anxiety-related.

“Why did he get a full write-off?” Tenzo asked.

“Iruka said so,” Shinichiro muttered.

Nao darted a glare at him. “No. The boy did the most community service for an in-training genin. Volunteered with the kids at the Academy, that sort of thing. He dealt with small children punching him and then told them they’re amazing. Iruka-sensei, ah, brought this to our attention.”

“He yelled,” Shinichiro said.

“He did,” Nao admitted.

“I see,” Tenzo said. “Well. Anyway, I can corroborate any jonin’s tax write-offs. I pay attention to my fellows’ lifestyle choices. You can also tell shinobi that if they miss a tax payment, they may get a visit from ANBU.”

Shinichiro and Nao’s mouths dropped open.

“No way,” Shinichiro whispered. “You’re— Are we supposed to know that?”

“ _No_ ,” Kakashi grumbled from his spot against the wall.

Tenzo ignored him. “You don’t have to tell people that I’m the specific ANBU, just that ANBU is willing to ask _politely_ for tax payments to be respected. And I _will_ ask politely. I will not resort to violence just to get ninja to pay the village what they owe. But it might make people think you have all of ANBU on your side, and that could prove useful.”

“Wow,” Shinichiro said.

“Thank you,” Nao said, a fervent passion in her voice. She reached over and grabbed Tenzo’s hand in both of hers. “Seriously. Thank you. We may actually have a hope of doing our jobs now.”

Tenzo gave her a small smile. “I’m happy to help however I can.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He saw them out the door with all of their documents and a few pages of notes on particular shinobi to bother and suggestions on how to threaten without actually threatening.

“So you’re a tax arbiter now,” Kakashi said once Tenzo had shut the door behind them. He stood up and leaned against the wall, his ominous image ruined by the fact that his wet hair was slumping in his eyes.

“I think I’m more tax collector than arbiter,” Tenzo said.

“Okay, listen,” Kakashi said. “There’s only one way I’m _not_ dumping you over this.”

The world took on a strange, surreal quality. Quietly, Tenzo hunted inside himself to double-check that he hadn’t suddenly fallen under a genjutsu. His chakra was stable. This was real.

Kakashi was speaking. “You have to guarantee that I never get taxed, and you have to get it so Guy gets taxed double.”

Tenzo had to struggle to take a breath. It was hard to pull in enough air to respond, especially when he knew what his response had to be. “I can’t. Do that.”

Kakashi’s chin dropped to his chest, then jerked back up in a very lurching nod. “Well then. I guess this is over.”

Tenzo felt completely hollow. Empty of his heartwood.

“We’ll still live together, of course,” Kakashi said.

Tenzo blinked. “Oh?”

“We’ll still share a bed,” Kakashi continued. “And we can cuddle. And be fuckbuddies. And I’ll eat your shitty cooking. And read you porn out loud. And you can still do my laundry and yell at me to take more baths.”

Tenzo wobbled and had to put a hand against the wall for a moment. “I see,” he managed.

Fingertips brushed his shoulder for a moment, a brief but solid touch that brought him back to this moment. He looked up into one grey eye.

Kakashi tugged his mask down so Tenzo could see his lopsided grin. “So basically nothing will change except I’ve officially dumped your ass and I’m going to be so mean to you about this new tax job thing.”

It took a while for Tenzo to take a full breath but when he did, he managed to smile back. “You’re never allowed to make a joke like that again, or else I’m having you audited.”

Kakashi pressed his fingertips to his mouth and widened his eyes in exaggerated horror. “Tenzo! That’s cruel and unusual punishment!”

“Cruel and unusual punishment is what I’m going to do to you if you don’t _dry yourself off already_ ,” Tenzo said.

“I could never be dry around you, babe,” Kakashi said. He waggled his eyebrow.

Tenzo groaned and gave Kakashi a shove towards the bathroom. “Clean up! I’m ordering in tonight.”

“Yeah, we have to fuck now that I’ve broken up with you,” Kakashi said. “Seal the deal, all that.”

Tenzo shoved him again. “You can’t have breakup sex with me if you get sick.” With a heavy sigh of surrender, Kakashi finally went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of this is based on a tumblr comic I saw about Gaara and Lee talking about taxes and now I am the opposite of youth. http://letsfollowthesedays.tumblr.com/post/113396763694/gluom-lee-visits-suna
> 
> No way Konoha has a functional mail system. Just. No fucking way. Everyone’s gotta turn in their own tax shit or get a friend to do it for them. 
> 
> My friend made the point that Kakashi would dump Yamato’s ass over becoming a tax inspector (but they'd still live together and fuck and stuff) so I included it but I gave myself too many feelings over this. It should have come across in the fic but here in the endnotes I’m gonna straight-up say Kakashi regretted that joke and never made it again. He’d committed to the joke and had to backpedal and then make more jokes to establish that everything was okay, though. Kakashi is the literal worst at feelings.


	13. Curse Seal Queries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in twenty minutes because the premise made my friend laugh.
> 
> I'm back on this Naruto AU train, toot toot. More to follow.

Yamato waved Sai in. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“Captain Yamato, I have a question for you, as an ANBU agent,” Sai said.

“Tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“Well, I want tea,” Yamato said, and he put the kettle on. It was his apartment, after all; he could have tea whenever he wanted. He settled down at the kitchen table to wait for the water to boil. “How can I help?”

“You are… close to Danzo, yes? Or you were?” Sai said. He was picking his words with care, Yamato could tell.

“I was a part of his hand-picked elite branch as a child, yes,” Yamato said. “Outside circumstances”—Kakashi—“led me to leave the inner circle of ANBU when I was about your age.”

“Were you sealed?”

Yamato swallowed automatically and pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth. It had been years since he’d thought of that. “Yes. I still am.”

“As am I.” Sai opened his mouth, revealing the clean lines of the Curse Tongue Eradication Technique etched onto the pink meat of his tongue.

“Mine is similar,” Yamato said, but he didn’t offer to show it. His had not been painted on with such a steady hand. It was messy and, if activated, Yamato knew the results would be messy. Sai’s curse seal would perform a tidy surgery and cauterize the wound. Yamato’s would probably blow off his jaw.

Sai’s eyes dropped to the table before him. “Um.”

“Yes?” Yamato said.

“I came across something in one of the books I have been studying,” Sai said. “It… raised concerns. About the nature of secrecy curse seals for ANBU.”

Yamato leaned in. “What kinds of concerns? Where did you read this?” Had Sai been studying sealing jutsu to break the curse? The curse mark wasn’t something that Yamato had ever worried about, though it made him careful of his words. It would be nice to have one less leash tied to him. 

Sai delicately set a small book on the table. Yamato blinked at it. The familiar, lurid cover matched at least four other novels on Kakashi’s bedside table. It was starting to sink in that this was not a curse-seal breaking conversation when Sai spoke.

“I have learned that people occasionally kiss using their tongues,” Sai said. “Do curse marks transfer if my tongue comes into contact with another?”

Yamato took a deep breath. Visions unspooled in his mind’s eye of every time he and Kakashi had made out and things had gotten wet and sloppy; of every time he’d given a BJ; of every place he’d put his panting, open mouth. He tried to ignore the tide of memories. It took all of his ANBU training to keep the heat from his face.

“No, Sai, curse marks don’t work like that,” Yamato said, his voice as even as he could make it.

Sai looked relieved. He collected his Icha Icha novel and stood to go. “I must go speak to Sakura. Thank you for your time, Captain Yamato.”

The curse seal transferring was probably the least of Sai’s worries, if he was going to Sakura’s and if he brought up what Yamato suspected he was going to bring up. Yamato let him go. He really didn’t feel like standing up at the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boner jokes


	14. The Alternates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if the ninja villages were high schools that had chess competitions. And by chess I mean shogi.
> 
> I don't know how chess club tournaments work, I only did theater competitions in high school. That's kind of the same, right?

“He turned down nationals,” Yamato repeated.

“Yep,” Kakashi said. “Said it was too much bother.”

“And if Shikamaru isn’t going, Choji isn’t going.”

“Yep.”

“And Ino?”

“Beauty pageant.”

“And so now we’re in charge of getting our alternates to the competition.”

“Yep.”

Yamato pressed his hands against his eyes until he saw flashes of light. “They do realize who the alternates are, right?”

“Shikamaru laughed about it, so yep.”

Yamato groaned quietly and rested his elbows on his desk. “I don’t think Naruto even knows how to set up a shogi board.”

“Sakura drags him to every meeting, he’d better fucking know by now,” Kakashi said.

“Language,” Yamato said automatically. Then, “At least Sakura and Sai will be there.”

“If we can get them there,” Kakashi said. “No way the shogi club has the budget for all five of us to have airfare.”

Yamato took his head out of his hands. “Asuma is the head ninja in charge of the club, why do we have to go? I’m just the treasurer and you, uh. Why are you there?”

Kakashi’s eye crinkled with a smile and shrugged. “I like shogi.”

Yamato eyed him suspiciously. “Asuma should take them.”

“He won’t.”

“But he should be—”

“It’s gonna be you and me,” Kakashi said. “And we can’t afford airfare. And I don’t drive.”

“I should hope not,” Yamato said. “I imagine your depth perception is awful.”

“It is,” Kakashi agreed, scratching at his eyepatch. He took his finger away from his face to aim it at Yamato. “I’ll get the permission slips sent out. You get van certified. And we’ll both try to get Naruto to remember how the gold general moves differently from the silver general.” 

Kakashi slouched out. He was slouching with _purpose_ now, though.

“We are so fucked,” Yamato whispered to himself, in the privacy of his closet-sized office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The teens and Kakashi were sitting on the curb, bathed with the faint light of dawn, when Yamato pulled up in the school’s white van.

“Good morning, everyone,” Yamato said. Sakura, Naruto, and Kakashi stared at him with the empty eyes of people who were up way before they wanted to be.

“Good morning, Team Captain Yamato,” Sai said brightly. Despite the chilly morning air, he was wearing a cropped turtleneck shirt. It was not school appropriate, but Yamato didn’t have the heart to tell him to put something else on when he was already giving up a Friday of school and his weekend to go to a shogi national championship as an alternate.

“This does not look like a safe van for minors,” Kakashi said. He tapped the blank white sides and the dark tinted windows, then looked at Yamato meaningfully.

Yamato glared. “It’s the school’s van, not mine. Get in, everyone, and buckle up. I brought bagels.”

“Gnuhhh? You’re the best, Mister Yamato!” Naruto yelled, somehow moving from asleep-on-his-feet to headfirst in the paper bag of bagels in the span of a second.

“Share!” Yamato said. He twisted in his seat. “Naruto, you have to share the bagels! Can you hear me?”

“Oh, he’ll share,” Sakura said. She still looked exhausted but now she looked murderous as well. She dragged herself into the back of the van.

“Are there plain ones?” Sai said, trailing behind her. “Those are my favorite.”

Kakashi had finished loading the trunk with everyone’s bags and now he slumped into the passenger’s seat. He had a dog on his lap, some kind of pug. The pug had a dark blue bandanna around its neck. The pug gave Yamato a Look.

“Is that allowed?” Yamato asked.

“Is what allowed?”

“Bringing your dog on a school trip? Will it be okay in a car for two days?”

“Yeah,” Kakashi said, as if it was obvious. “Pakkun’s a service dog.” He gave Yamato a Look just like the dog’s and then turned away. Yamato sighed when he realized he was going to have Kakashi’s eyepatch aimed at him the whole drive. Not that there was any reason for Yamato to be looking away from the road and over at his co-pilot, of course. 

“Naruto, buckle up,” Yamato said. “The bagels aren’t going anywhere. And please give one to Mr. Hatake.”

Kakashi’s head whipped around. Somehow, even with only one-fourth of his face visible, he managed to look betrayed. “Tenzo! I thought we were closer than that!”

“Tenzo?” Naruto stuck his head next to Yamato’s. He sprayed crumbs of bagel as he said, “Hey, is that your first name?”

“It’s a nickname,” Yamato said coldly. “Buckle up.” He turned the key. The engine coughed and rattled before it turned over, and then the slightly staticky synth-heavy strains of Yamato’s favorite radio station wound their way through the van. Yamato put the car into drive. They were on their way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naruto hiccuped an hour into the drive. “Hey, uh, can we pull over?”

“Hm?” Yamato said. He was trying to pass a truck but the driver seemed determined to go above the speed limit only when Yamato was right next to her. She was also not making eye-contact, which was a sure sign she knew what she was doing. Asshole.

“I gotta use the bathroom,” Naruto said.

“You should have gone before we left,” Yamato said absently. He gave up and floored the accelerator. The van didn’t acknowledge his aggression for a long moment, and then they lurched forward. The needled climbed up the speedometer. They hit 80mph and still the truck wasn’t letting them pass. Yamato’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t feel good,” Naruto said.

“Tenzo, there’s a rest-stop in a mile and we better take it,” Kakashi said.

Yamato sighed and took his foot off the gas. The truck slowed down too. Yamato floored it again. The truck struggled to keep up but he _had_ her this time, he passed her and swung into the lane in front of her with a small, vicious grin. That was the only gloating he allowed himself. He glanced in the rearview mirror.

Sai was absorbed in a book. Sakura was asleep, her mouth open, headphones in her ears. Naruto had a hand pressed to his stomach and he was staring out the window with a desperate expression.

“Oh,” Yamato said. He signaled and took the next exit. When they pulled into the gas station, Naruto barely waited for Yamato to slow the van down. He ducked out the door and staggered for the convenience store. 

Sai watched his progress with interest. “Where is Naruto going?”

“The bathroom,” Yamato said. 

“Hope he makes it,” Kakashi said. He got out and stretched, his battered shirt riding up. Somehow, despite how lazy he seemed, the man had abs. Yamato looked away, and found himself staring at Kakashi’s service dog. The pug was still giving him a Look. It was odd to see a dog that focused. 

“What was your dog’s name again?” Yamato said.

“Pakkun.”

The dog’s eyes drifted shut, as if Yamato had put it to sleep with how boring he was.

“Woooo boy!” Naruto was chugging from a bottle of piss-yellow Gatorade he had apparently purchased at the store. “That was close! I almost puked my guts out, haha!”

“Do you need dramamine?” Yamato said. “Or I have some natural ginger lozenges that may help with motion sickness.”

“Nahhh.” Naruto flapped his hand. “I’m fine, I just needed some Gatorade!”

Yamato frowned. “I haven’t heard of that remedy. Does that… help?”

“Yep!”

“Ah. Well, let’s get back on the road.”

They were just merging back onto the highway when Sakura shifted in her seat and yawned. “We close?”

“No,” Yamato said. “We’ll be there by five tonight, but not sooner.”

“Want to share my Gatorade, Sakura?” Naruto offered. He sloshed the bottle in her face.

“I’m good,” she said, pushing it aside. “Thanks. Where’s Sai?”

Kakashi and Yamato both looked around the van. There was a distinct absence of Sai.

“Oh, fuck,” Kakashi said.

“I’ll turn around,” Yamato said, putting the blinker on.

“Really? Sweet!” Naruto sounded pleased. “I need more Gatorade, I finished this one.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They had to pull over three more times before lunch. Naruto refused to try any of Yamato’s remedies for nausea, but bought more Gatorade every time they stopped. Yamato wasn’t sure if he should warn Naruto about the dangers of over-hydrating. The boy didn’t seem to understand that ‘middle ground’ was an option, and Yamato worried that if he told Naruto he could get sick from drinking too much that he’d stop drinking altogether.

At noon, Naruto fell asleep for twenty minutes and woke up hungry. “Pull over, let’s get ramen!”

“I packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” Yamato said. “There’s not a lot in the trip budget for meals. Sai, could you pass them out?”

“Yes, Captain,” Sai said. He dug through Yamato’s paper bag of carefully sorted snacks (labelled ‘Snacks and Meals’) and handed a single sandwich to Sakura, gave Kakashi Yamato’s as well as his own, kept a sandwich for himself, and then passed Naruto three.

“Awww, this isn’t enough,” Naruto whined. “Why can’t we get ramen?”

“Don’t feed him that much, Sai,” Kakashi said. “He’s been threatening to toss his cookies for the past five hours.”

Sai looked concerned as he reached for Naruto’s stack of sandwiches. Naruto yelped and crammed as many of them in his mouth as he could. Crumbs and wet fragments of peanut butter tumbled from the edges of his mouth. Sai retreated as Sakura made noises of disgust.

Kakashi peeled back the plastic baggie and handed Yamato his lunch. “Did you individually wrap each of these?” 

“Yes,” Yamato said.

“You are destined to be a soccer mom,” Kakashi told him. “If there are baby carrots in Ziplocs back there, you’re doomed.”

Yamato rolled his eyes, then had to yell, “All of you, quiet down back there! No fighting!”

Kakashi was giving him a smug look when he glanced over. Yamato shook his head. He wanted to deny how soccer-mom he seemed but knew it was painfully true. He might as well embrace it. He was doomed to be a single soccer mom to all of his one-on-one tutees and, in this moment, to the shogi club’s alternates.

“Sakura,” Yamato said, “would you like to look over some of the books I brought on shogi strategy? We should all brush up on our knowledge of how the game works.”

Everyone glanced at Naruto. He was staring out the window, still chewing his sandwiches. He looked a bit green, but he also looked half-asleep. He was the one who needed to study for the tournament but, on the other hand, if he passed out then he might not throw up his lunch.

“Sure,” Sakura said. She rummaged in the paper bag Yamato had labelled ‘Games and Study Tools’ and came up with a battered paperback. “Should I start at the beginning?”

“Let’s review the pieces and their movements and then go from there,” Yamato said. He heard Kakashi sigh beside him but elected to ignore the man.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three more pit-stops for Naruto to almost throw up and they pulled into the hotel. Rooms had been pre-booked for them—a room for students and a room for teachers. Sakura’s eyes narrowed when she saw the two beds for herself and her two male teammates.

“Naruto, you sleep in the bathtub,” she said.

Naruto looked over at her in horror. “What? Sakura! Why?”

“Sai’s less likely to snore,” she said. “And I don’t want you doing weird stuff while I’m asleep.”

“I would never!” Naruto looked comically affronted.

“You can sleep with me, Naruto,” Sai said.

Naruto reeled back. “But what if _you_ do weird stuff while _I’m_ asleep?!”

“We’re right next door,” Yamato reminded them. “We’re here if you need us.” It seemed that the shogi club alternates were figuring out comfortable sleeping arrangements on their own, though, and he left them to it. The teacher leaders had adjoining rooms to their students. The door between the two rooms had locks on each side. Yamato left them open, hoping that at least Sakura and Sai would have the courtesy to knock. When he paused to survey the teachers’ room, though, he noticed one key detail. Asuma had been the original teacher leader. _Just_ Asuma. Apparently no one had notified the hotel staff that there would be (inexplicably) _two_ teacher leaders joining the shogi team from Konoha.

Kakashi was sprawled out on the queen-sized bed, one knee bent, propping his head up on his hand. It was a pin-up pose, ruined only because he had his dog draped over his stomach.

“Which side do you prefer?” Kakashi asked. He sounded almost seductive. His fingers tapped a beat on the sheets.

“I’m going to sign our team in,” Yamato said, trying and failing to keep the squeak from his voice. He ducked out of the room and took the elevator to the front lobby. He collected the name badges and schedules for the teens, as well as the breakfast and dinner meal tickets—they were on their own for lunch. He returned to the kids’ room and passed everything out, told them they’d be serving dinner until 9 so they only had half an hour to take advantage of the buffet, and suggested that they all get more familiar with shogi (he made a point of staring at Naruto for this portion of his informational speech). 

“Have you all figured out where you’re sleeping?” he said.

“Yes,” Sakura said from where she was sitting on what was obviously her bed.

“Yes,” Sai said, perched on the other bed.

“Yeah,” Naruto grumbled. He had a pillow under one arm and Sakura’s top comforter trailing from his other fist.

“Excellent,” Yamato said. “Please knock on the adjoining door if you require assistance at any point. Mr. Hatake and I will wake you up tomorrow morning for your first games. Get a good night’s rest.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Sai said solemnly.

“I want food, let’s go,” Naruto said.

Yamato smiled faintly and left them. He didn’t feel particularly hungry; driving all day had exhausted him more than it had whetted his appetite. He pulled the adjoining door closed behind him and sighed. When he looked up, he realized that only one bedside light was on. 

Kakashi was nothing more than a lump under the blankets on the left side of the bed. Faint snores emerged at random from under the covers. His dog was nowhere to be seen.

Yamato brushed his teeth and put on his most respectable pajamas in the bathroom so the light wouldn’t disturb his roommate. The ‘respectable pajamas’ still had creases in them, that’s how long they’d remained folded in his drawer. They were an ugly plaid pattern on the pajama pants and matching button-up shirt. As Yamato did up the last imitation-mother-of-pearl button, he realized that the pajamas were going to be useful in his accidental quest to be the least appealing, most soccer mom human being. In front of Hatake Kakashi, a man who, um. Well, he was pretty sexy. This was not a good time or place to be thinking like that, but it was a quiet humming thought in the back of Yamato’s mind as he flossed. He was going to be sharing a bed with the hottest male teacher at Konoha High. 

Why the fuck had the man decided to come on this field trip?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamato woke up sweating, curled on his side. His back felt like it was pressed up against a sun-warmed rock. There seemed to be oddly knobbly rocks pressing into the backs of his knees and his ribs. Yamato shifted and someone sighed in his ear.

Kakashi was spooning him. It should not have been as comfortable as it was. It should not have felt this natural. And the man somehow managed to smell amazing. It was unmistakably a _musk_ kind of smell, nothing sweet or nice, but it put Yamato in mind of campfires and generalized outdoorsy, woodsy adventures. And BO, but not in a bad way. And dog. In a bad way, but it wasn’t the overwhelming odor. Maybe Yamato was just biased to like his smell.

It took a significant amount of willpower to roll away. He had to wriggle out from the dead weight of Kakashi’s arm, too. 

Once he got some distance, he snuck a peek at the bedside clock (6:48am, twelve minutes until his alarm would have gone off) and then rolled over to get a look at Kakashi. This didn’t leave him with a lot of bed to move around on since Kakashi had snuck over to his side of the mattress in the night, but that didn’t matter. 

Kakashi didn’t sleep with an eyepatch and there was a long, thin, pale line dug into the flesh of his left eyelid and cheek. It even cut through his eyebrow. It was a long, vicious scar. It suited him, strangely enough. It looked right on him. 

He also didn’t sleep with that half-mask and. Well. Maybe it was just the novelty of seeing Kakashi have lips but Yamato was kind of staring really hard at those lips.

When Yamato’s gaze moved up, he saw that Kakashi had his unscarred eye open and was watching him.

Yamato found himself on the other side of the room, facing away from the bed. “Morning!” he said, trying not to sound as panicked as he felt. He did not succeed. He could hear the mania in his voice and it was not subtle at all. “Do you want to give the inspirational speech to the kids this morning or shall I?”

“Why’re you talking to the wall?” Kakashi asked, a yawn in his voice.

“Nothing,” Yamato said. He shook his head and corrected himself to, “I mean, no reason.”

“You go pump them up or whatever, I’m gonna sleep more,” Kakashi said. “No way they’re up this early, though. Feel free to come back and join me.”

Yamato could feel his own blush surging up the back of his neck, consuming his face, rushing to the tips of his ears. “Thank you, but, ah. I should. Wake them up.”

There was a whuffing noise around his ankles. Yamato flinched. Kakashi’s service dog was staring up at him, looking as bored as ever.

“Hello,” Yamato said. He bent down and scratched at the dog’s ears. The dog’s tail thumped the ground but its expression didn’t change. Yamato stepped around it and quietly opened the door to the kids’ room. Sakura was sitting up in bed, hair everywhere, listening to Sai talk with her eyes only half open. Naruto was asleep on the floor, limbs spread out like a starfish. 

Sakura looked up when Yamato entered and waved with the hand that wasn’t propping her head up. “Hey, Captain,” she mumbled. “Sai’s wondering what the best piece to promote is.”

“Do you have an answer for him?” Yamato asked.

Sakura shrugged. “Pawns? They suck. And no one pays attention to them. They stand a chance of making it all the way to the other side of the board.”

Yamato squatted down and shook Naruto. “Time to get up.”

Naruto whined and flailed a little but he did sit up. His hair looked even messier than Sakura’s.

Yamato straightened. “All right, everyone. You have half an hour to get ready, then we’ll eat breakfast and plan out the day.”

“Can I keep this dog?” Naruto said. Yamato looked down. Kakashi’s pug had its front paws on Naruto’s leg and was giving him the same blank stare it gave everything, but its tail was wagging.

“That is Kakashi’s dog but you can be in charge of it for right now,” Yamato said, thinking fast. “So long as you’re all in the dining room in half an hour. I’m going to take a shower and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

As he left the room, he heard Sai ask Sakura, “Where did he find sleeping clothes that hideous?”

“Old people store,” Sakura said. Naruto snickered.

“Teenagers are mean,” Yamato muttered to himself, shutting the door firmly behind him.

“They _are_ old people jammies,” Kakashi said. He was an indistinct shape in the half-light of the room. “You should take them off.”

Yamato refused to respond to that because _what the hell_ and instead took the fastest shower he could, pulled on his slightly wrinkled khakis, and tied his tie with great deliberation. He finished the knot and took a deep breath. They were going to be fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naruto was holding Kakashi’s service dog tightly, his jacket half-unzipped and his hair a soggy mess that somehow still defied gravity. “Um, Mister Yamato? I dunno if I should be doing this.”

“What do you mean?” Yamato said, buttering his toast. 

“I dunno how to do shogi,” Naruto said. “Like, I know the king can go anywhere it wants—”

“One space in any direction,” Yamato said, nodding encouragingly.

“Okay, and the, uh, the lance—”

“Forward any number of spaces. And the pawn only moves one space forward at a time and it can only capture other pieces forward.”

Naruto frowned, lips moving as he repeated these instructions to himself. “Okay. Um. And then—”

“The silver general can move one space forward and any diagonal direction,” Sakura chimed in. “And the gold general moves one space in any direction except backwards diagonally.”

Naruto face collapsed into misery. “Wait, what? Shit.”

“Language,” Yamato said.

“I can’t remember all this, though!” Naruto wailed.

“You forgot the knight,” Sai said, stirring his cereal. “It only moves forward in an L shape.”

“What does that even _mean_?” Naruto said. He buried his face in Kakashi’s dog. The pug blinked lazily, then started munching a piece of bacon from Naruto’s plate.

“Sai, Sakura, could you draw him a board and demonstrate?” Yamato asked.

“Can you?” Sakura muttered. 

“I think it’s good for _all_ of you to review these things,” Yamato told her. "As a team."

She stared into her cup of coffee sullenly but Sai was unfolding a napkin and pulling a pencil stub from a pocket of the cropped vest he was wearing as a shirt. Yamato wondered how he kept to school dresscode normally when he owned so many midriff-baring garments. It wasn’t really his business but it was a bit of a brain teaser.

Naruto watched the informational drawings Sai did over the service dog’s head. His blue eyes darted frantically over the napkins as Sai and Sakura took turns explaining the basics of shogi again. Yamato observed. 

They were doomed for this tournament. The only one on the team who had hope of making it to the second round matches was Sakura, and she didn’t seem to have a lot of confidence in herself. Actually, she didn’t seem to care one way or the other, which was probably the best attitude to have at this point. She and Sai were bonding as the only competent members of this shogi team, though, and the two of them were sharing their knowledge and experience with Naruto. It was a futile gesture but it was bringing all of them closer together as a team. It was clear that they cared enough to try at least, which was more than Shikamaru had been willing to do. Yamato felt a surge of pride at his team of alternates. They were good kids. He was proud of them.

“So the Knight goes like _that_?” Naruto said. His ragged fingernail traced a shape on the checkerboard Sai had sketched out.

Sakura smacked her head against the table and Sai closed his eyes as if he was in pain. 

“No,” Yamato said. “It goes like _this_ or _this_.”

Naruto whined softly and pressed Kakashi’s dog to his face. “We’re so fucked, Captain.”

“We are,” Yamato said. “But watch your language. And do your best anyway. Think of it this way: we’re already doing better than the original Konoha team since we actually showed up.”

“Yeah!” Naruto put the dog back in his lap and beamed. “We’re awesome! Way better than that lazy Shikamaru!”

Would that Shikamaru were here, Yamato thought wistfully. But to his kids he only said, “Exactly. Now finish your breakfast and let’s check your schedules to see where you’re competing first.”

“Morning,” Kakashi said, slumping into the empty seat beside Yamato and tilting it back on two legs. His mask and eyepatch were back in place and he stretched his arms overhead, then folded back in and stared at Yamato’s half-eaten breakfast pointedly. “You gonna finish that?”

“Get your own,” Yamato said. “And what are your plans for the tournament?”

Kakashi stood up with a heavy sigh. “It’ll have to wait until I get my own breakfast, won’t it?” He wandered off in the direction of the buffet. He was wearing sweatpants that were slightly too short, the worn elastic around the cuffs revealing a few more inches of ankle than they really should. He looked like a ragged P.E. teacher, not a shogi mentor. Yamato adjusted his own tie and turned back to his students.

They were huddled together, talking in whispers. Or, in Naruto’s case, an approximation of a whisper.

“Do you think we’ll see his face?” Naruto whisper-yelled.

Sakura hissed something behind her hand. Sai nodded solemnly. 

“I bet we can sell the information for a million dollars,” Naruto whisper-yelled.

“You’ve never seen Mr. Hatake’s face?” Yamato said. “Is that a thing?”

All three heads turned towards him. Sakura’s eyebrows rose. “Have you ever seen his face?”

“Am I not supposed to?” Yamato asked cautiously.

“No one has,” Sai said.

“Yeah, and he won’t tell anyone why he’s allowed to cover his face up like that but we can’t wear ski masks to school,” Naruto added, scowling. “I bet he’s suuuuuper ugly under there.”

“You never know, he could be a model,” Sakura said.

“And he is keeping his face covered to prevent students from being overwhelmed by lust,” Sai said, nodding in agreement.

Yamato coughed to cover a laugh. “I see. I didn’t realize that Mr. Hatake’s face was a secret.”

“The biggest secret at school,” Naruto said solemnly. “We’ve been trying to solve the mystery for years but even when we had Sas—” He suddenly stopped. He sighed and began to scratch Kakashi’s dog’s ears. The dog looked up at him and licked at his chin, which was slowly sinking lower and lower.

“Forget about him,” Sakura said quietly. “We have a shogi tournament to… try.”

“Win,” Yamato suggested.

Sakura gave him a pitying look. “Sure, Captain. We’ll win it for sure.”

Kakashi thumped into his seat again. “Wow, way to go Tenzo, you depressed Naruto. I didn’t realize it was possible. How’s Pakkun treating you, Naruto?”

“He’s a good dog,” Naruto said mournfully.

“Well, he can’t come to your match with you but I’ll sit in the audience with him and we’ll watch out for you, how about that?” Kakashi said. He slapped a hand against his thigh and Pakkun wriggled out of Naruto’s limp hands and trotted to sit beside Kakashi. 

“Yeah,” Naruto said, smiling a little. Then the smile slipped and he sighed.

“Cheer up,” Yamato said, unsure of where all this sadness was coming from. “It’s just one day, and it’s like a vacation. After your tournaments this morning we can go explore the town. Maybe we’ll go for ice cream.”

“That’ll be nice,” Sakura said. She glanced at Naruto out of the corner of her eye. He nodded and sat up a little straighter, started shoveling food in his mouth again. He’d be fine.  
Pakkun looked up from his spot between Kakashi and Yamato, eyes still half-lidded with boredom, and waited as Kakashi fed him little chips of bacon and sausage.

“You’re teaching him to beg,” Yamato pointed out.

“I already ate,” Kakashi said. He ignored the groans of disappointment from the teens across the table and added, “Besides, he’s a good dog.”

“Excuse me, you can’t have dogs in here,” said a voice behind them. “It’s unhygienic. And what if people are allergic?”

Kakashi flopped his head back so he was staring at the person upside-down. “Are you allergic?” 

The man was clearly a father—a shoulder bag with the legend ‘My student made the honor roll at Hidden Stone’ hung over one massive shoulder. His jaw jutted out grumpily. “No, but other children here could be.”

“He’s hypoallergenic,” Kakashi said.

“It’s still unsafe to have a dog near food,” the man said.

“He’s my service dog,” Kakashi said.

The man squinted. “And what exactly is he supposed to help you with?”

“That’s a very rude question,” Kakashi said. “I don’t have to answer it. Now go away.”

Yamato leaned forward and added, “Please.”

Kakashi turned and blinked at him, somehow managing to convey confusion with just one eye.

“Go away please,” Yamato clarified. He gave the large parent a very, very small polite smile and nodded once, as if it had all be resolved. Then he turned away and sipped at his coffee. Sakura and Sai had their eyes on their plates but Naruto was watching this drama unfold with wide eyes, his mouth hanging open a little. “Naruto, finish your breakfast. We have fifteen minutes until your match.”

“Shit!” Naruto gasped, and started eating again.

“Language,” Yamato said softly over the rim of his coffee mug. He checked out of the corner of his eye and found that the parent had stomped away, just as Yamato had hoped he would. 

Kakashi caught his eye before Yamato could turn back to his food. “You know, that’s the first time someone’s ever asked what Pakkun is a service dog for? They see a guy in an eyepatch and a mask and they assume that I need him to keep me from snapping or something.”

Yamato shrugged. “There are impolite people everywhere.”

“First time I’ve met someone _that_ rude though,” Kakashi said. He snorted and dropped a whole sausage in front of Pakkun. He stood and dusted his hands off. “C’mon, Naruto, I’ll walk you to your match.”

“Sakura’s is right next door,” Yamato said quickly. “She can go with you. If you’re done, Sakura…?”

“Yep,” she said, wiping her mouth with her napkin and scrambling to stand. 

“Good luck to you both,” Yamato said. “We’ll see you for lunch. Sai, are you ready?”

Sai nodded silently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You made a valiant effort,” Yamato said, smiling widely. He patted Sai on the shoulder. “That was a good game.”

“The match only lasted twenty minutes,” Sai said. “We will not be advancing in this tournament unless Sakura does well.”

“She is kind of our last hope,” Yamato admitted. “Still, I was proud that you didn’t say anything when that other student was calling you names. She should have been disqualified.”

Sai shrugged. “I didn’t fully understand why calling me a person who walks in streets would be an insult. Did she mean that I was a jaywalker?”

Yamato considered telling Sai that the girl had actually said that Sai dressed like a streetwalker, which implied Sai was a hooker, but shied away from that whole conversation. “I have no idea,” he said instead. “Her tone was inflammatory, though.”

“It was,” Sai agreed. “Let’s go see Sakura’s match.”

Kakashi waved a hand when he saw them walk in. “Yo.” 

Naruto had apparently put up an even more pathetic fight than Sai. He had Pakkun on his lap and was sitting bolt upright, his eyes narrowed and his expression focused. It seemed he was going to channel any regret or frustration he had over losing his shogi match into intense support for Sakura.

“How is it going?” Yamato whispered, sliding into the seat beside Kakashi.

“These shogi kids are _mean_ ,” Kakashi said calmly. “This guy’s been snickering every time Sakura makes a move. Really condescending. He has no idea she’s our school’s kickboxing champion. Wanna bet on when she snaps and kicks his ass?”

“No,” Yamato said.

“You’re no fun, Tenzo,” Kakashi whined, but his eye was squinted up in a grin.

“Why are you keeping up with that stupid nickname?” Yamato asked.

Kakashi suddenly leaned _very_ close, his mask-clad lips right next to Yamato’s ear. “It was cute when that little girl thought you were her imaginary friend. I like reminding you of it.”

Yamato swallowed. “Ah. Well. All right.”

“Oop, there she goes,” Kakashi said, shifting back in his seat. Sakura had just stood up, clamped both hands onto the edges of the little card table, and seemed to be prepared to beat her opponent over the head with it. Her opponent was grinning but the grin was fading at the edges as he stared into Sakura’s eyes. Yamato could only imagine the murder there.

“Fffudge,” Yamato said. “Kakashi, take Sai and Naruto and get everyone’s stuff from upstairs. I’ll get Sakura. We’ll meet up by the main desk. Five minutes.”

“Tenzo!”

Yamato glanced over, distracted by the delight in Kakashi’s voice. “What?”

“All it takes is a little homicidal rampage to get you to call me by my first name?”

Yamato blinked at him. “I’ll meet you at the front desk.” He moved for the main floor. Sakura had tossed the table aside and was advancing on the cowering figure of her too-abrasive shogi opponent. Yamato put his head down and sprinted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Two single-scoop vanilla in a cup, one single-scoop strawberry in a waffle cone, and, ah… Naruto, can you just tell him what you want?”

“I want rainbow sherbet and cookie dough and—”

“One scoop is all you get, Naruto.”

“Awwww come on, Captain Yamato!”

Yamato sighed. “All right, three scoops.”

“Yeah! Okay, uh, and I want coffee. On a sugar cone. With carmel sauce and sprinkles!”

Yamato sighed again. “You should get it in a bowl. It’s going to get everywhere.”

“Cone,” Naruto said firmly.

“And I’d like a waffle cone of pralines and cream,” Kakashi added. “One scoop. With sprinkles.”

Yamato gave him a dirty look as he pulled out his wallet but he stayed quiet. The ice cream man handed their treats across the counter without a word and they all sat around one of the cool, clean tables in silence to enjoy what they had.

“We got free dinner, free hotel, and free breakfast,” Yamato said after a while. “And we’re heading back a day early so you all get at least one day of your weekend.”

“We’re never gonna have to come to this tournament again,” Kakashi added. “Good job, kiddos.”

“They were assholes anyway,” Sakura growled. She bit down hard into the cone surrounding her strawberry ice cream.

“Yes,” Sai said.

“Fuck ‘em,” Sakura said.

“Language,” Yamato murmured around his spoon.

“You gonna finish that, Mister Yamato?” Naruto asked, staring at Yamato’s cup. Yamato stuck the spoon in his scoop of vanilla and slid it Naruto’s way. It wasn’t even worth asking how Naruto had finished a three-scoop cone in less time than it had taken the rest of them to finish a single scoop. The kid was bottomless. 

He inhaled Yamato’s ice cream and then jumped up. “Gotta pee!”

“Too much information,” Sakura grumbled, but she wiped her hands on her paper napkin and stood as well. “We should go before we get back in the car, though.”

Sai followed them without a word. Yamato could hear Naruto loudly complaining that Sai just wanted an excuse to see Naruto’s dick. He decided not to hear it though; it was a conversation he didn’t feel like having. In his quest to avoid hearing Naruto accuse Sai of sexual harassment, though, he found himself watching Kakashi. Kakashi was contemplating his cone, which he hadn’t even attempted to eat. He seemed absorbed by the way his ice cream was melting. 

Yamato glared. “Eat that.”

“Nah.”

Yamato stacked his and Sai’s empty cups. “Then why did I buy it?”

“You can have it.”

“I had my own—”

Kakashi pushed the cone in his face. Yamato jerked back, then took it because he didn’t know what else to do with it.

“Eat it,” Kakashi said.

Yamato eyed him suspiciously but took a bite. He wasn’t overly fond of texture changes. When he hit a cookie or a sprinkle it was jarring. The flavors fit well together, though. The sprinkles didn’t contribute much beyond general sweetness and grittiness but Yamato had paid for it. The ice cream was melting fast. He spent more time ensuring that he didn’t get his hand sticky than he did eating it, cleaning up stray drips before they hit his fingers. 

When he looked up, Kakashi was watching him, head propped on his hand. Yamato tucked his tongue back in his mouth self-consciously. “Why did you get this if you didn’t want it?”

“Who says I don’t want it?”

“…So why did you give it to me if you _do_ want it?”

“Food’s better when it’s stolen,” Kakashi said, and wrapped his hand around the cone and Yamato’s hand, dragging all of it towards his face. Yamato blinked and Kakashi tugged his mask down and took a huge, cracking bite of ice cream and cone. Yamato could see a tidal wave of drips poised to pour down. 

Kakashi let his hand go and said, “You should clean that up.”

Yamato stared. 

Kakashi settled his mask back over his face and nodded encouragingly. “Go on. Tidy up the edges.”

Yamato could feel himself starting to blush. “Um.”

“Okay, we’re ready,” Sakura said as she walked up.

“Hey, Mister Yamato, can I finish that?” Naruto called.

“Sure,” Yamato said. “Just one sec.” He took a long lick up the cone, feeling the ridges and the slide of the ice cream, and then bit down. The cone cracked in a very satisfying way. He couldn’t be sure because Kakashi only had one eye showing, but he was pretty sure Kakashi gave him a wink instead of a blink.

Yamato passed Naruto the ice cream. “Don’t spill any of it in the van.”

“If it even makes it to the van,” Kakashi said. He bumped his shoulder against Yamato’s as they stood. “So, Tenzo, you aren’t an ice cream fan?”

“I like it. Sometimes”

“But what do you _love_? Cake? Kebabs? Ramen, like our irrepressible pupil over there?”

“It depends. Where are you thinking of taking me?”

Kakashi shrugged with exquisite nonchalance. “Oh, I don’t know. Just gathering ideas.”

“There’s a soup-and-sandwich place around the corner from my apartment,” Yamato said. “We can start there.”

“Oh my,” Kakashi said. He sounded very pleased.

“You’re buying,” Yamato added.

Kakashi shrugged, scooped up his dog and slid into the passenger seat of the van. “Get us back in one piece and we’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sure my friend wasn’t thinking about my service animal chops when she sent me this prompt but I know an eerie amount about service animals despite not having any pets, so I was glad to have an opportunity to write that particular facet of practical therapy. 
> 
> People with service animals don’t have to have them in the little vests (though they should keep that pet on leash) and they don’t have to explain what the animal does for them. It’s super rude to ask. It’s basically asking for the mental/physical health history of a stranger. I imagine Kakashi has Pakkun to help him calm down from nightmares and panic attacks, and as an excuse to leave any situation he doesn’t want to be in (which are legitimate service dog tasks according to iaadp.org, by the way). 
> 
> Letting Naruto carry Pakkun is a major service dog no-no but the image was cute. Don’t pet or wander off with people’s service animals.


	15. House of Leaves (it's already a pun because leaf village)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Kakashi and Yamato moved into the house on Ash Tree Lane and Kakashi had a video camera because he wants to shoot an erotic home movie? _House of Leaves_ AU.
> 
> I’m not changing the overall fic rating but I’m warning you this chapter is M for horror elements... and for detailed sex scene descriptions. Some spoilers for _House of Leaves_ but this ends way, way differently than that book so still go read _House of Leaves_.

Much like its subject, _The Hatake Record_ itself is also uneasily contained—whether by category or selection. If finally catalogued as a gothic tale, a ghost story, or a “no-budget porno” as some have called it, the film will still sooner or later slip the limits of any one of those genres. Too many important things in _The Hatake Record_ jut out past the borders. Where one might expect horror, the supernatural, or traditional paroxysms of pleasure, one discovers quiet tenderness, a sequence on the theory of sound waves, or even laughter over a malfunctioning dildo.

 

 

 

 

_The Hatake Record_ did not first appear as it does today. Nearly seven years ago what surfaced was “The Five and a Half Minute Hallway”—a five and a half minute optical illusion barely exceeding the abilities of an Academy graduate with a camera. The problem, of course, was the accompanying statement that claimed all of it was true.

In one continuous shot, Hatake Kakashi, whom we never actually see, momentarily focuses on the doorway on the north wall of his living room before climbing outside of the house through a window to the east of that door, where he trips slightly on the flower bed, redirects the camera from the ground to the exterior white clapboard, then moves right, crawling back inside the house through a second window, this time to the west of that of that door, where we hear him grunt slightly as he knocks his head on the sill, eliciting light laughter from those in the room, presumably Yamato and Kakashi’s friend Rin—though like Kakashi, they too never appear on camera—before finally returning us to the starting point, thus completely circling the doorway and so proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that insulation or siding is the only possible thing this doorway could lead to. It is at this point when all laughter stops, as Kakashi’s hand appears in frame and pulls open the door, revealing a narrow black hallway at least ten feet long, prompting Kakashi to reinvestigate, once again leading us on another circumambulation of this strange passageway, climbing in and out of the window, pointing the camera to where the hallway should extend but finding nothing more than his own backyard—no ten foot protuberance, just rose bushes, a decorative wooden lawn ornament, and the translucent summer air—in essence an exercise in disbelief which despite his best intentions still takes Kakashi back inside to that impossible hallway, until as the camera begins to move closer, threatening this time to actually enter it, Yamato snaps, “Don’t you dare go in there, Kakashi” to which Rin adds, “Yeah, not such a hot idea,” and Kakashi stops at the threshold. He still puts his hand inside, finally retracting and inspecting it, as if by seeing alone there might be something more to feel. Rin wants to know if in fact her friend does sense something different, and Kakashi provides the matter-of-fact answer which also serves as the conclusion, however abrupt, to this bizarre short: “It’s cold as balls in there.”

Dissemination of “The Five and A Half Minute Hallway” seemed driven by curiosity alone. No one ever officially distributed it, though Yamanaka Ino owns an extensive collection of these tapes in the back of her family’s flower shop. She appears to be the main source of all VHS copies, a series of progressively degenerating dubs of a home video revealing a truly bizarre house with notably very few details about the owners or for that matter the author of the piece. 

 

 

 

 

Less than a year later another short surfaced. It was even more hotly sought after than “The Five and a Half Minute Hallway” and resulted in some fervent quests for Kakashi and the house itself, all of which, for one reason or another, failed. Unlike the first, this short was not a continuous shot, prompting many to speculate that the eight minutes making up “Sexploration #4” were in fact bits of a much larger whole. 

The structure of “Sexploration #4” is highly discontinuous, jarring, and as evidenced by many poor edits, even hurried. The first shot catches Kakashi mid-phrase. He is tired, grinning, and as always wearing a mask over his nose and mouth though the mid-shot framing reveals that he is shirtless. “—days, I think. And, I…I don’t know.” [Drink of something, unclear what. His hand spreads over the camera lens when his mask is down.] “Actually, it’s pretty easy to ignore so long as we stay busy.” [An amused snort.] “And now…this.”

The next shot jumps to Yamato breathing heavily, insisting that there is no reason to “go in after them.” At this point it remains unclear to what he is referring.

There are several more shots.

Trees in winter.

Spilled liquid (the tube says KY) on the kitchen floor.

A soft-focus shot of someone’s hand gripping cloth and a drawn-out moan.

Then back to Kakashi: “Nothing but this tape which I’ve seen enough times, it might as well be one of Jiraiya’s novels. And I still don’t know if we’re tiring it out yet. Well.” [Coughs.] “We’re getting tired out. But still. I think we’ll win.”

In the background, Yamato’s voice asks sleepily who Kakashi is talking to. This is followed by three more shots.

A dark hallway.

A featureless wall.

Stairs.

Then Yamato’s voice again, distant and angry: “Kakashi, get your ass out here! We’re not storing any more dildos in there, we’ve lost two boxes already.” There is a pause and then he says, “Okay, I didn’t mean your ass when I said— It was poor phrasing on my part. Stop looking at me like that.”

Thus bringing to an end this strange abstract which as the release of _The Hatake Record_ revealed was sparingly incomplete.

 

 

 

 

Then for two years nothing. Few clues about who any of these people were, though eventually a number of shinobi did recognize the author as none other than Hatake Kakashi, the hero of the Fourth Great Shinobi War. Unfortunately this discovery only generated a few months of heated speculation, before, in the absence of press, corroboration, the location of the house or for that matter any comment by Kakashi himself, interest died out. Most people wrote it off as some kind of weird hoax, or, because of the unusual conceit, an aberrant pornography premise. Nevertheless the deteriorating dubs did circulate and in some trendy academic circles a debate began: was the subject a haunted house? Where could someone lose two entire boxes of dildos? Furthermore, what was someone with Kakashi’s filmographic inexperience doing creating two strange shorts like these? And again, was this meant to be a narrative or a blue movie?

While “Five and a Half Minute Hallway” and “Sexploration #4” have been respectively called a “teaser” and a “trailer,” they are also, in their own right, peculiar cinematic moments. On a strictly visceral level, they provide ample shocks and curiosities. However, the most unnerving aspect about both pieces is their ability to convince us that everything really happened, some of which can be attributed to the verifiable elements (Kakashi, Yamato et al.), but most of which must be chalked up to the starkness of the production—the absence of make-up, expensive sound tracks, or crane shots. Except for the framing, editing, and in some cases subtitles, there is virtually no room for creative intrusion.

Who would have suspected that almost three years after “Five and a Half Minute Hallway” began appearing on VHS, Ms. Yamanaka would quietly release _The Hatake Record_ in a limited run and almost immediately cause unsettled boners in audiences everywhere.

 

 

 

 

_The Hatake Record_ now stands as part of this country’s cultural experience and yet in spite of the fact that many people have seen it, the film continues to remain an enigma. Some insist it must be true, others believe it is a trick. Others could care less, admitting that either way _The Hatake Record_ is a pretty good homemade porno. Still many more have never even heard of it.

These days, with the unlikely prospect of any sort of post-release resolution or revelation, Kakashi’s film seems destined to achieve at most cult status. Good story telling alone will guarantee a healthy sliver of popularity in the years to come but its inherent strangeness will permanently bar it form any mainstream masturbatory interest beyond the academic.

 

 

 

 

“It’s funny,” Kakashi tells us at the outset. “I just want to create a record of how Tenzo and I bought a small house in the country and moved into it and fucked a lot. Sort of see how everything turns out. No kunai, death, war. Just lots of lube, gardening, and prostate stimulation. I thought it’d be nice to see how people move into a place and start to inhabit it, break in the furniture and all that. I’ve never had this much space or time to fill up. Personally, I just want to create a nice little outpost for me and Tenzo. A place to suck dick on the porch and watch the sun set.”

Which is almost literally how _The Hatake Record_ begins, with Yamato yelling at Kakashi to turn off the camera if he’s going to be getting naked while behind his red face, the sun turns the first few minutes of daytime into gold. Despite critics’ claims, nothing about Yamato or Kakashi seems particularly devious or false. Nor do they appear to be acting. In fact Yamato is simply a very embarrassed man, solid and soft-featured, edging through his mid-30s, determined not to fall victim to his partner’s attempts to make home pornography, while the 40-year-old Kakashi is equally determined to get a decent shot of Yamato orgasming.

Of course, Kakashi’s risque take on the move to the countryside hardly reflects the far more complicated and significant impetus behind his project—namely his relationship with longtime companion Yamato. While both have been perfectly content to remain under the radar as a couple, Kakashi’s constant missions and the risks he undertook in the Fourth War have led to untold personal difficulties. Yamato has kept busy since the war by promoting various public works projects within Leaf Village, but now that there is little need for the average (or above-average), pre-war, violent ninja, Kakashi has made it clear that he is bored and needs to be entertained by his partner. Yamato works from home throughout most of _The Hatake Record_ , his preoccupation with various mundane tasks providing most of the set-up for the many compromising scenes that Kakashi stages for the film. 

None of this, however, is immediately apparent. In fact it requires some willful amnesia of the more compelling sequences ahead, if we are to detect the subtle valences operating between Yamato and Kakashi; or, as Donna York phrased it, “the way they talk to each other, the way they look after each other, and of course the way they talk each other in and out of sexual situations.” More often than not, the near wordless fragments Kakashi selects reveal what explication could only approximate. Two such instances seem especially sublime, and because they are so short and easy to miss, it is worth reiterating their content here.

 

 

 

 

In the first we see Kakashi climbing to the top of the stairs with a crate full of sex toys. We know it is a crate of sex toys because “Sex Toys” is painted on the side and Kakashi looks directly at the camera and nods. Their bedroom is still cluttered with lamps in bubble wrap and assorted unpacked weapon cases and garbage bags full of clothes. Nothing hangs on the walls. Their bed is not made. Kakashi finds some room on top of a bureau to set down his burden. He is about to leave when some invisible impulse stops him. He takes a lacquered wooden dildo out of the crate and inspects it, though his attention wanders and he ends up pressing the toy to his lips and leaving it there, deep in thought.

When Yamato walks in, carrying a basket stuffed with bedsheets and pillow cases, Kakashi starts measuring the toy’s girth with one hand.

“What are you doing?” Yamato immediately asks.

“Planning.”

“Give me that,” Yamato demands. “We still have to unpack. We have all the time in the world now.”

“No,” Kakashi says, a grin clear in his tone.

 

 

 

 

It is unnecessary to dwell here on the multiple ways in which these few seconds demonstrate how Kakashi values Yamato, except to highlight how despite his apparent preoccupation with sex and disregard for Yamato’s commands the scene itself represents the exact opposite. Using image and surprisingly skilled edits, Kakashi has preserved a moment of reflection wherein he encounters a sexual object and proceeds to ignore its connotations to think on something else, though we are not informed as to his thoughts. His closing remark, as Samuel T. Glade has pointed out, could refer to either “that,” “unpack,” or “time.” It is clear that despite his verbal refusal Kakashi obeyed Yamato to some degree, as this is the end of the scene.

 

 

 

 

In keeping with this approach to the heavily spliced-together film, the second moment also does without explanations or disingenuous musical cues. Kakashi simply includes Yamato’s own staging choices, notably the first explicit sexual scene in the movie. Once an ANBU member and later assigned to lead the infamous Team Seven while Kakashi was out of commission, Yamato has maintained a position as a quick construction worker and as a part-time counselor for shinobi suffering from PTSD. His history with Kakashi goes back to when Yamato was ten years old and Kakashi was fifteen, their relationship platonic until Yamato was nearly twenty. The casual trust and intimacy between the two men is hardly surprising. 

Early on, Kakashi shows Yamato how the hand-held camera worked and suggests Yamato attempt filming scenes for their pornographic home video himself. He promised to view the tapes only if Yamato agreed, and ultimately found many sections of film worth keeping. Almost all of the B-roll in _The Hatake Record_ comes from Yamato’s focus on the space within their home and the silence that is a deep part of their relationship. He is willing to leave the camera rolling while he makes lunch, or as he and Kakashi lean on each other and read separate books in the evening, or while Kakashi gets dressed in the morning. He also includes a shot of himself standing shirtless in their bedroom, constructing new bookshelves. There is an abrupt jump cut to Kakashi, nude except for a white mask hooked behind his ears and covering the lower half of his face, laying sprawled on the floor in front of these shelves suddenly filled with books whose covers are instantly recognizable as part of a series of popular erotic novels. The exact framing before and after the jump cut collapses time with precision that is seen nowhere else in _The Hatake Record_. Yamato, still shirtless, enters the frame and pulls one book free, causing all the books to fall like dominos along the length of the shelf. However instead of tumbling to the floor they are soundly stopped by the wall. 

“No better book ends than two walls,” Yamato says in satisfaction. He flips open the book, and begins to read what is clearly a well-established passage on the narrator’s torrid feelings. Kakashi’s body language immediately relaxes more than we see throughout the entire film and there is an unhurried, unashamed sensuousness to his movements as he listens and responds to the text of the novel. Yamato remains on the edge of the frame throughout this auto-erotic scene, lending the story and the image but not himself to the situation. 

Yamato’s filmed sequences prove to be some of the longer shots in the film, their orchestrator apparent in the stillness and patience of the shots as well as in the distance from the subject matter. Yamato uses his construction skills to make tripods of various heights to hold the camera, selecting the angle carefully and leaving plenty of time to capture the moment he wants. Kakashi includes these shots in _The Hatake Record_ without commentary and leaves the quiet untouched. This is a contrast to Kakashi’s own filmed narratives, which are often hand-held, close-up, and filled with noises ranging from conversation to the filmmaker’s quiet breathing to the unmistakable sounds of lovemaking. Both styles help us to understand the odd situation that the men find themselves in when they begin to experience more of their new home.

 

 

 

 

Near midsummer, a few months after moving in, Yamato and Kakashi went Leaf Village for routine medical and psychiatric procedures. When they returned, something in the house had changed. Though they had only been away for three days, the change was enormous. It was not, however, obvious—like, for instance a fire, a robbery, or an act of vandalism. Quite the contrary, the horror was atypical. No one could deny there had been an intrusion, but it was so odd no one knew how to respond. On video, we see Kakashi acting amused while Yamato simply draws both hands to his face as if he were about to pray.

What took place amounts to a strange spatial violation which has already been described in a number of ways—namely surprising, unsettling, disturbing but most of all uncanny. In their absence, Yamato and Kakashi’s house had become something else, and while not exactly sinister or even threatening, the change still destroyed any sense of security or well-being.

 

 

 

 

Kakashi is shooting a long follow shot of Yamato’s ass as Yamato climbs the stairs to the master bedroom. They have spent the weekend with Nohara Rin and Kakashi is insisting that they try out some new devices he bought since “it’s been so long, Tenzo.” Yamato replies with amusement that it hasn’t been too long, opens the door to their room, and then freezes. We discover along with Yamato and Kakashi a plain, white door with a glass knob. It opens into a second closet that lacks shelves, a rod on which to hang things, or even decorative molding. Instead, the walls are perfectly smooth and almost pure black—‘almost’ because there is a slightly grey quality to the surface. The space cannot be more than five feet wide and at most four feet long. On the opposite end a second door identical to the first one opens up into the upstairs bathroom.

Kakashi immediately asks if Yamato made the new room. Yamato simply shakes his head, and his mute denial is taken as truth without further debate. The next question is whether or not someone could have broken in and in three days constructed the peculiar addition. Improbably, to say the least, particularly as Kakashi mentions that none of his traps have been sprung.  
Their final thought is that someone came in and uncovered it. Just installed two doors. But why? And who?

Yamato is reluctant to leave the new closet alone but Kakashi shocks him by immediately writing “FUCK CLOSET” on the door in bright red paint and setting the camera on the dresser so he can move some of their extensive sex toy collection into the new space.

“Why?” is all that Yamato can manage, though his posture of beseeching confusion speaks volumes.

“Why not?” Kakashi responds. “More room in the non-fuck closet for the gear this way.”

There are many boxes piled around the edges of the bedroom labeled in Yamato’s smaller handwriting. The men have a box of old shinobi uniforms each, and both have extensive crates of weaponry and the associated cleaning implements. Yamato helps drag boxes into the vacated space (they can only fit two crates of sex toys into the new FUCK CLOSET but even this small change seems sufficient) before ducking downstairs to get started on lunch. Kakashi is unpacking a new set of egg vibrators from his suitcase when Yamato yells his name.

Kakashi is out of the room in less than a second. What happens in the intervening time is unknown, as he leaves the camera behind in his haste. The next thing we see is a hand-held walking shot of Kakashi coming up behind Yamato, who is standing in the living room and staring into a dark doorless hallway which has appeared out of nowhere in the west wall. The camera moves until Kakashi’s head is presumably resting on Yamato’s shoulder, at which point the image steadies.

“But really, what is this?” Yamato asks. His voice echos down the hallway for a long time and the camera jerks with his surprise, then stills again.

“Fuck if I know.”

“Don’t go into it,” Yamato says. “That has to be over sixty feet deep.” Kakashi makes a noncommittal humming noise and Yamato says, “I’m serious. Don’t go in there.”

“But we suddenly have so much _space_.”

“Promise.”

“Let’s see if it even stays.”

“It will.” The camera is jostled, probably pushed away, and we lose a clear shot but we can hear Yamato add, “Promise me.”

Kakashi’s answer, if any, is unheard and the next shot we see is of early morning light shining through the windows and pouring into the hallway which has, as Yamato predicted, not vanished. Yamato is glaring at the hallway, hands on his hips. He looks to Kakashi behind the camera and says, “Should we tell someone about this?”

 

 

 

 

**The Five and a Half Minute Hallway** in _The Hatake Record_ differs slightly from the bootleg copy which appeared years earlier. For one thing, in addition to the continuous circumambulating shot, a wider selection of shots has made the coverage of the sequence much more thorough and fluid. For another, the hallway has shrunk. This was impossible to see in the VHS copy because there was no point of comparison. Now, however, it is perfectly clear that the hallway which Yamato estimated at “over sixty feet deep” when it first appeared is now a little less than ten feet.

Context also significantly alters “The Five and a Half Minute Hallway.” A greater sense of how Kakashi, Yamato, and Rin and how they all interact with the house adds the greatest amount of depth to this quietly evolving enigma. Their personalities almost crowd that place and suddenly too, as an abrupt jump cut delivers Might Guy into the house, uncharacteristically quiet and unable to take his eyes off the strange dark corridor.

Unlike other strange-but-true stories where understanding comes neat and fast (i.e. This is clearly a door to another dimension! or This is a passage to another world—with directions!) the hallway offers no answers. It remains meaningless, though it is most assuredly not without effect. As Kakashi threatens to reenter it for a closer inspection, Yamato reiterates his previous plea and injunction with a sharp and abrupt rise in pitch.

Kakashi sighs deeply. “Well then, put a door in and let’s put the couch in front of it.”

“Yes, fine, all right,” Yamato says.

Kakashi turns the camera around and stares into it with his one uncovered eye. Behind him, as the sounds of moving furniture and a muttered jutsu begin, he raises the Leaf headband he still wears as an eyepatch, stares into the camera with mismatched eyes, and winks. 

A title card reads: **Sexploration #1**

The next cut is poorly lit, filmed at night and with mood-setting candles providing the only illumination. The camera’s focus goes in and out throughout the scene as it attempts to find a point of clarity in a world too dim for the AF sensors. Kakashi has set the camera on the low coffee table, aimed at the new placement of the couch and the doorway behind it. He and Yamato are in the midst of some indistinct sexual act that requires the entire couch. Their activity goes on until negotiating satisfactory positions ends with Yamato seated on the back of the couch, Kakashi kneeling on the cushions before him. The curiously nonvocal nature of both participants means that we are able to hear as Yamato rhythmically bangs on the door masking the hallway that the resultant echo is expanding, deepening, conveying an ever-growing depth. There is a pause in intercourse. The fuzziness of the camera’s focus at this point means it is impossible to discern what kind of look the two men give each other, only that a look is exchanged. If they were to open the door behind the couch it is clear that they would find the thing is growing. 

However, they do not elect to check; activities resume unabated. The resulting echos return to previous levels and stay there until the shot ends with Yamato climaxing and almost immediately asking, “Wait, why is the little red light blinking?” as he points at the camera.

“Whoops,” Kakashi says.

 

 

 

 

It is interesting that these two undeniably talented shinobi, each members of an elite class, refuse to investigate an anomaly in their own home. The reasons behind such indifference provide almost as tantalizing a mystery as the meaning or significance behind the strange occurrences themselves. There is only one moment which teeters on the brink of investigation.

Yamato is apparently embarrassed enough by the unintentional filming incident of “Sexploration #1” that he makes Kakashi sleep on the couch. Surprisingly, Kakashi sleeps deeply despite the door looming in the background of the shot. 

There is shadowy movement at the edge of the frame and we hear Yamato whisper, “Kakashi?”

The man immediately sits up.

“Do you think it would hurt to look around?”

Kakashi glances back at the door and shrugs. “I mean, while you’re down here can’t we just fuck again?”

Yamato does not answer but Kakashi is unaffected by the implied rebuff, scratching a hand through his hair and giving Yamato’s question an ambiguous response: “We’ve both survived some pretty weird shit.”

They look at the door.

“Do you think it’s drafty out here?” Kakashi asks suddenly.

This is seemingly some personal intimate code because Yamato does not respond, but moves in-frame and takes a space on the couch wedged between the back cushions and Kakashi. The two go still and presumably sleep.

 

 

 

 

**Sexploration #2** takes place the following day. Kakashi is sitting backwards on the couch with his arms hanging over the back, forehead resting on the wood of the door, his visible eye closed. The camera angle is off kilter, placed on uneven cushions a little further down the couch. Yamato’s voice comes from off-screen, asking, “What are you doing?”

We see Kakashi’s cheek twitch into a faint smile that Yamato cannot see. He answers, “Okay, here’s the plan. Tenzo, you stand right outside the door and I’ll be in the hallway giving you a blow job.”

Kakashi’s smile grows as the silence lasts longer, crinkling his eye above his mask. Finally a pair of pants smacks into the back of his head and sends the camera tumbling off the back of the couch and onto the pillows below. We are left to imagine what this scene involves, though Kakashi is fairly explicit in his plan.

 

 

 

 

The film picks up with **Sexploration #3** at an unidentified later time, in the evening. Yamato has framed a shot of himself getting into bed. Kakashi is off in a corner of the room, humming a single note that only changes every time he draws a new breath. The camera angle reveals that the FUCK CLOSET is still present. Kakashi is flicking through the bookcase that Yamato made some time earlier, when they had first moved in. He pulls out a book. Just as with Yamato, its removal causes an immediate domino effect. Only this time, as the books topple into each other, the last few do not stop at the wall as they had previously done but fall instead to the floor, revealing at least a food between the end of the shelf and the plaster.

Kakashi thinks nothing of it.

“Whoops,” he says, and turns back. 

Since Yamato has placed their bed as the central image, we see him jerk with surprise and swing his legs out of bed before Kakashi does. “That’s impossible.”

“What?” Kakashi says.

Yamato sounds angry as he walks over to the corner and nearly out of frame to examine the shelves in detail. “I built these and they’re off.”

“What?”

“Do you know where my tape measure is?”

“You have a tape measure?”

“Of course I do, it’s on my tool belt.”

Kakashi takes a few steps back towards their bed as he says, “I think you should go get your tool belt.”

“So do I,” Yamato says.

“It's gonna make you look so construction worker-y,” Kakashi says. “Damn.”

Yamato strides past him and goes digging through one of the few moving boxes still lining the perimeter of the room. “I have to make sure my measurements aren’t off. I may need you to go outside and tell me how wide the house is from the exterior. Can you turn the camera off?”

Kakashi gives a full-body sigh and the camera cuts to an indistinct close-up shot that pulls away to reveal that it is a hammer hanging in one of the loops on Yamato’s tool belt. The camera zooms out even further to reveal that Yamato is squatting in front of the bookcase, glaring at the shelving seriously.

“Tenzo,” Kakashi says from behind the camera.

Yamato tilts his chin but otherwise does not move.

“Come fuck me.”

Yamato’s chin drops. He is still motionless.

“You can leave the belt on.”

“That would be uncomfortable for both of us,” Yamato says.

“Let’s try it at least.”

“The house is a full eleven and three quarters inches larger on the inside than the outside,” Yamato says. “My measurements are not wrong.”

“Tenzo I don’t care that you’re not eleven and three quarter inches, I still want what you’re packing,” Kakashi says. 

Yamato looks over and grimaces when he sees the camera. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.” After a moment Kakashi adds, “You’re saying we have some extra space in this room to bang, so we might as well get to it.”

“Well that’s one way of looking at it. Fine.” Yamato stands up and we are left watching his legs as he walks over to Kakashi, working to undo his pants. “Can you turn that off, though? This is going to be awkward when I have to stop and take the belt off.”

“Life’s awkward, sex is awkward, this house is awkward,” Kakashi says.

Yamato sighs and the next shot is intercourse. We are made privy to this encounter with a series of two different camera angles. In the first, Yamato is indeed wearing the toolbelt and nothing else but in the second shot, which is from a higher angle and somewhat better lit, he is not. Kakashi has neatly removed the “awkward” moment itself though he did not remove the assertion that such a moment would and did occur.

 

 

 

 

It is impossible to appreciate the importance of space in _The Hatake Record_ without first taking into account the significance echoes. In Sexploration #1 we hear the echoes behind the door, though we do not see the hallway causing these echoes. The latter portion of Sexploration #3 likewise contains echoes, as the bedframe is nearly a foot away from the wall in the same way the bookshelf no longer touches the wall. The resulting noises are extremely loud, though neither man makes an attempt to reduce the slamming noise.

In the afterglow of the event, Yamato is again the first to notice what has changed in the room. “Shit,” he gasps, and once again launches himself out of bed. This time he heads towards the featureless wall that once contained the FUCK CLOSET.

“You have to be kidding me,” Kakashi says. “We didn’t even get a chance to use some of those.”

Yamato turns. “What?’

“That was two whole boxes of dildos,” Kakashi says. “I’m gonna give that goddamn hallway a piece of my mind.”

Yamato’s chest is still heaving from exertion as he stares at Kakashi for a long moment. The camera perfectly captures how his unreadable expression slowly changes into a wide grin. It is not until he smiles that we realize he has been worried this whole time. For the first time his eyebrows relax out of a constant frown and his shoulders loosen. “There’s no reason to go in after them,” he says. His breathing slows as he adds, “We can buy more.”

“Lots more?”

Yamato nods.

“Sweet,” Kakashi says. “C’mere. We’ll test drive all of them. Later. I’m tired.”

 

 

 

 

For **Sexploration #4** we see Kakashi push the couch aside and measure out the doorway with a piece of string. Yamato is behind the camera here, watching for a while before he asks, “What are you doing now?”

“Think we could install a sex swing?”

Yamato chokes on his own spit. “What?”

“Drill into the ceiling, put hooks in there for a swing.”

“I mean… probably?”

The camera shifts away for only a second before freezing. The focus slowly returns to the door. Kakashi is staring at it as well, head cocked to the side. He and Yamato are unsure whether or not they really just heard something growl.

“Huh,” Kakashi says after a moment. “I guess we’ll have to be extra loud.”

Yamato gives a dry cough. “Ah.”

“I’ll harmonize with whatever noises you can come up with,” Kakashi says. There is another growl, this time distinct, and without missing a beat Kakashi adds, “And I’ll harmonize with that, too.”

“Deal,” Yamato says. He laughs. “I’ll get my tool belt.”

 

 

 

 

We do not see the attempted home repairs, nor do we see the aforementioned swing at any point in the film. The whole exchange has the feel of a threat where Kakashi is sexually claiming a space heavy in ominous imagery, from its darkness to its fluctuating nature and the unpredictability of its intrusions. Kakashi’s threat is met by a mysterious growl that Kakashi counters with a further sexual counterattack. The existence of the swing is irrelevant in the face of this .

What is not left to the imagination is a surprisingly constrained moment that is jarringly tender in the midst of the strangeness and uneasiness that permeates _The Hatake Record_. The framing is no longer the typical wide-angle that leaves free range for the sexual participants. Here one of the men, most likely Kakashi considering his preoccupation with the very close physical details of his partner, has placed the camera so that it captures a portion of their sheet-covered mattress. The image seems frozen for a moment. There is a sudden whirring noise, followed by a rapid puttering, and we hear Yamato say, “Did you break the—” before dissolving into laughter. A discarded vibrator rolls across the camera’s view and out of sight. The laughter gives way almost seamlessly to noises of a sexual nature but we see only swirls and folds of sheets and shadows. A hand scrabbles into view, clutching at the fabric. Extensive analysis has led to a general consensus that this is Yamato’s hand. The shot lingers past the point of orgasm, to when Yamato rolls further in frame and rests on his side. There is a pause and then Kakashi’s foot intrudes into the space, a deliberate subversion of our expectation that he is going to take hold of Yamato’s hand. Yamato swats his foot out of frame and sighs.

 

 

 

 

There is a jump cut to Kakashi wearing his cloth mask over his ears and looking into the camera with his scarred left eye closed. He speaks: “So we’ve been fucking and filming for quite a few days, I think. And, I…I don’t know.” He pauses for water, covering the camera lens as he gulps a few mouthfuls out of the bedside glass. He continues: “Actually, it’s pretty easy to ignore so long as we stay busy. And now…this. The whole house is quiet. The bed frame’s back against the wall. I wonder if the hallway’ll be there tomorrow. Nothing to show that weird shit happened here. Nothing but this tape which I’ve seen enough times, it might as well be one of Jiraiya’s novels. And I still don’t know if we’re tiring it out yet. Well. We’re getting tired out. But still. I think we’ll win.”

Out of frame, Yamato asks, “Who’s that?”

“Go back to sleep,” Kakashi says. He waits, looking offscreen, and then turns his gaze back to the camera. “I think we’ve won already. It feels empty in here, in a way it hasn’t before. I think we exorcised this place with gratuitous boning. And if not, I guess we use the hallway downstairs as the new fuck closet.” He opens his scarred eye just long enough to wink at the camera. And the film ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS THE MOST EXPLICIT THING I’VE PUBLISHED OH GOD. But it had to be done, there was literally no other reason to give Kakashi a camera and have him film shit in his house.
> 
> We decided a long time ago Ino runs a bootleg porn rental business out of the back of her family’s flower store.
> 
> Also if you thought this was interesting but ultimately not spooky enough, go read _House of Leaves_. It’s quite good, very scary, and does some crazy shit with footnotes and typography that I didn’t even try to replicate here. I copied almost verbatim from the text at times (and tried to stick to the style) so please no one report me for making gay Naruto fanfic out of, and also inserting the words FUCK CLOSET into, a work of popular postmodern literature. I feel like I should apologize to someone about this.
> 
>  
> 
> but I won’t lawl this whole process made me laugh so hard


	16. Dad Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Yamato showed up around episodes 365-6 because the Gedo statue clearly isn't absorbing his chakra anymore and Team Orochimaru was fucking around in those weird tunnels? I refuse to rewatch everything so this is in as good an order as my memory can make it.

Orochimaru opened another door, glared into it, and shut it. “Damn,” he said. Even a word without any sibilant sounds managed to sound like a hiss in his mouth. 

“This is the worst fucking field trip,” Suigetsu grumbled. “We’re lost underground and we can’t find the Uchiha whatever. Let’s just get out of here. This war is fucking nuts, I don’t wanna be around for it. C’mon, Jugo.”

Jugo looked over and shook his head. Then he went back to staring at Sasuke. It wasn’t a possessive stare, the way Orochimaru would sometimes zone out and get a little gleeful grin on his face. Or the way Karin looked at him, which was pretty sexually charged in a pretty fucked up way. Jugo looked at Sasuke as if he was simply waiting to be ordered around. He’d go on waiting forever, probably. Sasuke didn’t talk much. Even now he was standing, arms crossed. Suigetsu thought of it as ‘idling’ mode. 

“Here, let’s speed this up,” Suigetsu grumbled. He slammed his heel into a door, busting the hinges to powder. “Nope, empty.” He moved down the line. “Nu-uh, not here. Nope. Nothing. Fucking nothing again, wow, I didn’t expect _that_. And once again we have—” He paused. 

“What is it?” Sasuke said.

“Huh. Just, like. A dude?”

“What?” Orochimaru slid up behind Suigetsu and stared over his shoulder. “Who is this? Who— Ohhhhh.” 

Suigetsu backed away from Orochimaru’s delighted tongue acrobatics. “Uhhhh, so you know this guy?”

“An early experiment! All grown up! And here I thought Danzo might have killed him by now. What a delight. Karin, dear, come with me if you would. He doesn’t look to be in good shape.”

“What? Ew, he’s old,” Karin said, wrinkling her nose. “Like, thirty.”

“Tsunade’s older,” Suigetsu said. “You let that hag mack on you.”

Karin punched him. He dissolved, laughing, and reformed in time to watch her pick the guy’s head up. Glaring the whole time, she muttered, “Hey, bite down on my arm, okay?”

The guy’s face twitched. His eye opened a crack and his eyebrows collapsed into incredulity.

“Yeah, okay, but actually do it,” Karin growled.

He did. They always did, which Suigetsu still thought was pretty weird. There’s no way he’d ever bite that asshole redhead, even if he was swirling around the drain. Not that she’d offer, of course. At this guy’s bite, Karin’s lips tightened but otherwise she ignored him. Instead, she looked over his head at Sasuke for a disturbingly long time. She finally peeled her eyes away and said to Orochimaru, “This guy has really strange chakra.”

“I know,” Orochimaru purred. “I made it myself.”

“Yeah? What’s special about him?”

“Darling, can’t you tell? Use those miraculous abilities of yours. What does he feel like?”

Karin stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Mmmm forests. Old forest. With leaflitter everywhere.” She sneezed suddenly, jerking her arm out of the man’s mouth. “Kinda pollen-y, too.” She dropped his head back to the ground with a thump and added, “He’ll live. Tsunade already drained me, I’m not going into chakra shock for some guy we found in a cave.”

“What do they call you?” Orochimaru asked.

The man wiped his mouth. “Thank you,” he said to Karin, who looked over her glasses at him before turning away with a sniff. He levered himself up on his elbows, moving slowly. “I’m Yamato. Does anyone have any water? I’ve been down here a few days and I feel very dehydrated.”

Everyone looked at Suigetsu.

“Oh, fuck you all very much,” he grumbled. He pulled out his water bottle and offered it with bad grace.

“Thank you,” the man said solemnly. He took small sips, drinking like a bird. Though he looked around at all of them, his eyes kept sliding away from Orochimaru. He squinted a little at Sasuke.

“Hey, don’t drink it all,” Suigetsu said.

The man passed it back to him. “Thank you,” he said again.

“Whatever,” Suigetsu said.

“Why are you here?” Yamato asked, but he wasn’t talking to Suigetsu. His gaze was somewhere around Orochimaru’s ankles.

“We’re looking for an Uchiha relic,” Orochimaru said. “Do you know where it is, _Yamato_?”

“No,” Yamato said. He had to clear his throat and repeat, “No,” because his voice trailed off halfway through. 

“Pity,” Orochimaru said. He turned. “Come along, children.”

“Are you going to help Madara or the Allied Forces?” Yamato asked.

“Mmm, that’s what we’re going to find out. Sasuke here needs to be fully informed before he picks a side, you see. I’m going to give him a little history lesson. Highly interactive.”

“Do you mind if I come with you?” Yamato asked.

Orochimaru whipped around. “Oh? And why would you want to do something like that?”

Yamato had to clear his throat again before he could speak. “I’m invested in the outcome.”

Orochimaru laughed. Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo all flinched at how dry and strange it sounded. Sasuke blinked. Yamato didn’t move at all, just kept staring at Orochimaru’s feet. He didn’t look calm though, Suigetsu realized. He was breathing very slowly and deeply, the hand furthest from Orochimaru a fist. He didn’t look calm; he looked frozen.

“All right, Yamato,” Orochimaru said once he’d chuckled himself to silence. “Keep up.”

Yamato stood in sections. He brought his knees in. He rolled onto his knees. He got one foot on the ground. He pushed his torso up. He pushed so his legs were under him. All the while, his eyes were fixed on Orochimaru’s sandals.

When they all filed out after their teacher/captor, Yamato followed. Suigetsu glanced back and saw he had one hand trailing against the wall. He was slower but he didn’t lose them as they wound their way through the caverns under Leaf Village.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamato gaped with the rest of them when the four ex-Hokages stood before them all in their cracked and grey-ish glory. “Senju Hashirama,” he breathed.

The man who had founded Leaf Village looked around with dark, dead eyes and smiled in a puzzled sort of way. “Yeah? Hello! What the hell’s going on here?”

“We have been brought back to life,” observed the second Hokage, Senju Tobirama. “By my forbidden reanimation jutsu.”

“You have so many forbidden, dangerous jutsu,” Hashirama said, shaking his head. “You shoulda channelled all that energy into something else, I tell you what.”

Tobirama rolled his eyes.

“Kinoe, what’s going on?” asked the third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen. “Are you working with Orochimaru now?”

Yamato didn’t answer. He merely looked at the old man, his expression blank.

“No, I suppose not,” the Sandaime said quietly. “Well then. What is all of this?”

“I’m arranging a little history lesson for Sasuke here,” Orochimaru rasped. “He wants to understand the philosophy behind the Leaf Village’s foundations. Then, after you’ve explained things to his satisfaction, he will make the choice to either save the village or… Well.” Orochimaru grinned, a slow curl of his lips that grew wider than seemed possible for his face. 

“We are in the midst of a war,” Yamato said.

Orochimaru gave him a sharp look. “And?”

Yamato kept his eyes on the newly reanimated Hokages. “I thought they should know. Sasuke’s understanding of the village is what may turn the tides of battle.”

“So we failed to bring lasting peace,” the fourth Hokage said. He shook his head. “And I am sure my son is in the midst of all of this.”

“Yes,” Yamato said.

Namazaki Minato’s chin jerked up. “Naruto is? Do you know what’s going on?”

“A bit,” Yamato said. “I was… This is complicated, but my unique chakra was drained to strengthen and control an army of clones. I have some idea of where that chakra went, and what happened to it. A large amount suffered heavy damage from the chakra of the fox demon. I can confirm that Naruto is a part of this war.”

“I’d hoped to forestall any future wars,” Minato sighed. After a moment, though, a small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Still. Of course he’d be in the thick of it.”

“I was told that you never met your son,” Yamato said. “You seem to know him well, though.”

“It’s complicated,” Minato said. He laughed a little and added, “Let’s just say my chakra knew what he was doing.”

“Chakra communication across space, time, and even death,” Yamato mused.

“If you don’t mind?” Orochimaru said coldly. Behind him, Suigetsu muttered something that made Jugo sigh.

Yamato nodded without looking over. “My apologies. Please, Lord First, tell your story of Konoha’s origins.”

“Who is this guy?” Hashirama asked , waving at Yamato.

“A ninja that I infused with your abilities,” Orochimaru said. “The only wood-jutsu user that Konoha has left, just as Sasuke is the only Uchiha left. It’s oddly fitting that the two of them should be here.”

Sasuke deliberately turned away from Yamato’s glance and took a step forward. “Tell me what Konoha is, and why,” he said. His voice was flat, as expressionless as his face. He looked over each of the past Hokage’s faces in turn. “Who will tell me why I should care if this godforsaken rats-nest endures?”

“You should explain, brother,” the second Hokage said. “Your ideals are what shaped this place, after all. I’ll step in if you get off track.”

“I’m an amazing storyteller, don’t be a dick,” Hashirama grumbled. “Okay, kid. You’re an Uchiha, yeah? They probably have their own version of this story, but here’s mine…”

Off to the side, Minato met Yamato’s eye and jerked his head meaningfully. Yamato glanced at the rest of the room’s occupants, then sidled away from Hashirama’s storytime.

“You know Naruto?” Minato murmured.

“I serve as the… the back-up leader for his team,” Yamato said. “Your student, Kakashi, is the regular leader, and has led Naruto’s team since they were genin.”

Minato’s smile was almost as broad as his son’s. “Wonderful! So Kakashi took up teaching! I’m glad he found a vocation that’s so positive. How soon did he leave ANBU after my death?”

“Ah,” Yamato said. “He actually remained with ANBU for… many years.”

Minato’s smile vanished. “What?”

“It’s where I first met him,” Yamato said quickly. “I’m still incredibly grateful for that encounter. He saved me from the more dangerous aspects of the ANBU mentality, showed me how important comrades are, and helped me escape Danzo’s influence. Even then his calling was to bring teams together… though he didn’t always have the attitude for it.”

“Hm,” Minato said. His eyes, the irises bright blue against the dark sclera of death, were gazing into the distance. “So he hasn’t had an easy life.”

“No,” Yamato said. “Truly, he wouldn’t know how.”

“And Rin?”

“She’s an accomplished medic,” Yamato said. “She’s not a ninja anymore, though she uses medical ninjutsu extensively.”

“Are they married?” Minato asked.

Yamato opened his mouth, then closed it. “No,” he said eventually. “They never… I didn’t know they thought of each other that way.”

“Ooops,” Minato said, grinning. “I bet Rin would be mad I brought it up. She had such a crush on that boy… Obito couldn’t stand the way she looked at him but Kakashi had no clue. I’d hoped they’d sort it out when they were older. Did he turn her down?”

“I don’t know,” Yamato said. “Neither of them spoke to me about it.”

“I imagine she was too embarrassed,” Minato said. “Did they marry other people?”

“No.”

“Oh well,” Minato said. “Sometimes it’s just not a priority. Or people aren’t as lucky as me and Kushina.” 

The fourth Hokage’s grin turned soppy and Yamato quickly dug in his fanny pack and pulled out his wallet. “Would you like to see some pictures?”

“You have pictures?” Minato ducked so his head was next to Yamato’s. “Show me!”

“This is, ah, Kakashi and Rin and Might Guy,” Yamato said. He flipped through the little stack of Polaroids he carried with him, trying to keep the pictures close to his chest so Minato couldn’t see the ones that were just of Kakashi. Further in the stack he found a rather tattered photo with Kakashi’s sloppy handwriting on the back spelling out ‘My Brats.’ “Here is your son with his genin team. Sasuke, there, and Haruno Sakura from a civilian family.”

“Ah, I came from a civilian family,” Minato said happily. “I’m glad they’re still letting kids like me join.”

“She’s a powerful ninja,” Yamato said. “Very accomplished in her strategy, her medical prowess, and her strength. She trained a bit with Rin, actually. Here, this is a more recent picture.”

Minato’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow, did she make that crater?”

“Her teacher was the Sannin Tsunade, just as Naruto trained with Jiraiya and Sasuke trained with—” Yamato coughed suddenly, but Minato was squeaking in delight.

“Naruto trained with my old teacher? That’s wonderful! Oh, but I hope he’s not reading those weird books Jiraiya wrote after _Tales of a Gutsy Ninja_.”

“Your son is largely incorruptible,” Yamato said.

Minato turned those eerie sky-blue-and-mud-black eyes on Yamato. “Could you tell me more about him? I met him so briefly… I got a sense that he’s loud and optimistic like Kushina. Is that true?”

“I never met Uzumaki Kushina,” Yamato said. “From what Kakashi has told me, your son resembles her in volume, vocabulary, and passion for ramen.”

“Is he like me at all, too?” Minato asked.

Yamato thought for a moment, trying to remember pieces of conversations and complaints that Kakashi had engaged in over the years about his teacher. He compared those fragments to what he knew of Naruto. “Yes,” he said at last. “He loves his home. Even when it is imperfect, he loves it for what it could be.”

Minato leaned back, smiling. “That’s good. That’s wonderful. So he sees the potential that we all have. Is he a popular kid?”

For the first time, Yamato looked away. He noticed that Hashirama was making some gestures as if he was trying to push a boulder away with both hands, while Sasuke watched him with a faint wrinkle between his eyebrows. Yamato tuned in to what Hashirama was saying. 

“—perfect. Like, it was absolutely beautiful. An ass worth writing songs, ballads, about.”

“Move on,” Tobirama said. “Please. Now.”

“In a minute, in a minute,” Hashirama said. He turned back to Sasuke. “You gotta know what I’m talking about, you’re an Uchiha. Yours is the clan of magnificent asses.”

Tobirama sighed and also glanced at Sasuke. “I promise, the way I tell this story spends less time describing Uchiha Madara’s posterior.”

“Your way is boring,” Hashirama said. “Anyway, so I spent quite a few years getting to hold on to that ass, but things in the village weren’t always great for the Uchiha, even though I was banging the hell out of their leader.”

Yamato suppressed a smirk at the expression on Sasuke’s face. The boy with the water bottle was snickering into his hand while the enormous ginger boy behind him looked off to one side, faintly pink. The redhead with healing abilities was trying to get a better look at Sasuke’s ass. And Orochimaru was watching Sasuke’s face.

“Yamato?” 

Yamato looked back at Minato. “Hm?”

“Is Naruto popular?”

“Now he is, yes,” Yamato said. “He’s very happy.”

“Wonderful! I’m so glad you and Kakashi have been taking care of him. I wasn’t really worried thanks to the Will of Fire, and the Third told me he’d look out for— What is it?”

“I only met Naruto this year,” Yamato said. “Kakashi only interacted with him once he made genin at age twelve. Prior to that, he was… As far as I could tell, he was living alone.”

“What?” Minato flicked a glance at the Sandaime, who was listening to Hashirama’s story and nodding every now and then. “Sarutobi promised me that—”

“I think I have some more pictures,” Yamato said. He tried to shuffle through his photographs but Minato wasn’t looking. He was stiffening up, his shoulders going back and his hands curling into loose fists at his sides. 

“Tell me,” he said.

There was a long pause as Yamato carefully considered what he _could_ say, what he probably shouldn’t mention, and then what he needed to say. 

“He was a pariah,” Yamato said eventually. “Everyone except Naruto knew that he had the demon fox inside of him. It was taboo to tell him. The only people who spoke to him and looked out for his wellbeing were Ichiraku of Ichiraku’s Ramen Stand and Umino Iruka, an Academy teacher.”

Minato ran a hand through his hair. It looked so much like his son’s, but actually clean. Yamato noted in a distant sort of way that it would still stick up in preposterous ways whether it was washed or not. So Naruto wasn’t completely to blame for having such a bizarre hairstyle.

“You’re disturbingly honest for a shinobi,” Minato said.

“I see very little reason in maintaining fictions,” Yamato said. “Especially when they cause harm.”

“I guess,” Minato said. “Damn. Sarutobi promised… Jirayia did too. I thought I could count on them to look out for him. I thought—”

“He really is happy now,” Yamato said again. “The past is passed.”

“Yeah,” Minato said. He sniffed a little. “I can’t cry when I’m dead,” he said, surprised. He pressed a hand to one eye and pulled it away, staring at it in horror. “Jeez. This is awful.”

“I’m sorry,” Yamato said.

Minato shrugged. “I suppose if he’s happy now, that’s good. It’s not really enough but…”

“Oi!”

Minato and Yamato both looked up. Hashirama was glaring at them. In fact, everyone except the second Hokage was looking their way. Tobirama was glaring at the ceiling.

“Is my story _boring_ you?” Hashirama growled.

“He’s telling me about my son,” Minato said. His eyes narrowed when he looked at the Sandaime. “I have some things I want to talk about with _you_ , Sarutobi.”

The old man couldn’t meet his eye. “I suppose you would.”

“You were done with the main portion of the story anyway,” Tobirama told his brother. He turned to Sasuke. “You. Do you have further questions for us?”

“No,” Sasuke said.

“Make your choice,” Orochimaru rasped. “Will you save Leaf Village or doom it?”

Sasuke kept his eyes on the ground. “I will assist,” he said finally.

“Then I will, too,” Orochimaru said. “As will the Hokages, I’m sure. And as will the rest of your team. Come, children.”

“Thank goodness,” Minato murmured to Yamato as they joined the line of ninjas racing into battle. “I didn’t want that kid to wind up hurting Naruto.”

“I don’t think he could,” Yamato said.

“Why not?”

Yamato was already breathing hard, though they’d only run a few hundred yards. They were still accelerating into average ninja running speed. He shook his head and tried to concentrate on getting air into his lungs.

The Yondaime’s arm hooked around his back and Yamato’s feet left the ground. He tried not to flinch as he was suddenly put in close proximity to the man’s cracked, grey face. The hair slapping at his cheek was clean, as were the Yondaime’s clothes, but there was a strange absence of smell that made the whole experience eerie. Minato was not alive, that was abundantly clear. He had chakra to spare, though, and he seemed to have no trouble carrying Yamato.

“Who is this Sasuke?” Minato asked. He kept his eyes on the tunnel before them.

“He’s the last of Uchiha clan. His father—”

“Kushina was friends with his mother, I know who Sasuke is,” Minato said. “What I want to know is who he is to my son. They were on the same genin team, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So why has Sasuke teamed up with the outlaw Sannin? Why does the fate of this war rest on him? Why is he even considering destroying Leaf Village?”

Kakashi had been _very_ clear about what he thought of Sasuke’s life choices. Yamato had heard the story enough times that he could retell it without much effort. “He wanted power to kill his brother, the boy who slaughtered the entire Uchiha clan in one night. He fled the village almost four years ago and has resisted capture since then. It seems he’s had some kind of change of heart since speaking with Hashirama. Those are the facts that I know.”

“How did Naruto deal with all of this?” Minato asked.

They were out of the tunnels now, speeding into the fresh air. Yamato took a deep breath. There was an ominous flavor to the atmosphere. It held an intensity he didn’t like. The moon was gleaming a sick red, a blood moon. A bit too obvious an omen but shinobi like Madara were flashy. Yamato didn’t see the point of it.

“Were Naruto and Sasuke close?” Minato asked.

“Extremely,” Yamato said, without really thinking about it. He sought the right words for their relationship. “Mm, it’s… complicated. A rivalry where neither of them really knows what the other thinks of him. So they’re constantly testing each other, but Naruto wants him back so badly… It’s complicated. Kakashi, Sakura, Sai, and I have talked it to death and we still don’t fully understand it. Naruto definitely doesn’t understand it.”

“Oh,” Minato said. 

“I can get down if you’d like,” Yamato said. His arm was going numb where it was still wrapped around Minato’s shoulders.

Minato paused at the next tree and let him down. He didn’t move on the way Yamato had expected him to, though.

“You should catch up with them,” Yamato said. “They’ll need you at the battle, Yondaime.”

“They’re behind us,” Minato said. “I’m the Yellow Flash, remember? Or, no, that was before your time I suppose…”

“Kakashi told me,” Yamato said. “And you’re famous.”

Minato seemed to be thinking very hard about something. “Do you know how Naruto will feel about Sasuke showing up to help?”

“He’ll be ecstatic,” Yamato said. “But he’ll try to hide it.”

“Hm.” Minato’s frown deepened. “Do you think… that he wants to be friends with—”

“Yes,” Yamato said, before Minato could even finish his sentence.

Minato blinked at him. “Do you think he wants to be more than friends with Sasuke?”

“I don’t think he’s considered that far,” Yamato said. “Friends is more than enough.”

Minato smiled. “Ah. Young love.”

Yamato had to suppress a snort. He remembered his own ‘young love’ days. Young love was silly and blind and hopelessly confusing. If you were lucky, though, you became two people who were rarely apart and who didn’t have to say anything to fill up that time spent together. At least, that’s what Yamato knew. 

“And you and Kakashi, hm?” Minato’s grin was wide and teasing. “How long?”

Yamato kept his face completely blank. “Pardon?”

“You heard me.” Minato winked.

“…A long time.”

“Good!” Minato clapped him on the shoulder gently. “You’re a good man. You don’t let him get away with shit. And you’ve been good to our Naruto.”

“Our? Yours and Kush—”

“You’re something like a father to him, I can tell,” Minato said with a smile. “Even if you couldn’t be there for him earlier, I’m glad he has you now. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go on ahead. I’m glad I met you, Yamato.”

“And I you, Yondaime.”

“Please. Minato.” And then the Yellow Flash was gone, phasing away, to battle and to his son.

Yamato sighed and, while he was still alone, took a second to stretch out his quads before taking to the trees again. He would have to take the slow way to battle. Hopefully the world wouldn’t be destroyed before he got there.


	17. Road Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for _Mad Max: Fury Road_ but not the ending, just the middle bit. 
> 
> I came home from the movie and started writing this immediately. I fought it so hard because my anime buddy didn't ask for this and actually still hasn't seen _Mad Max: Fury Road_. I gave in though. I took this movie that was about explosions and I made this fic which is about dick talks. There are some references to film-verse things that will hopefully make sense in context but I... I didn't try very hard to make this stand apart for someone who's never seen the movie.

Yamato slid his motorcycle down the slope of the sand dune, sending plumes of dusty gold behind him. The parked war-rig was rusted and ugly, charred with not-too-long-ago fire, and with more than a few human skulls nailed to it. An intimidating thing. He could understand the sentiment behind such trappings but it was still a bit like overkill.

The girl with the buzzcut had her hands raised over her head. She looked like she was willing to wait forever for someone to verify her claims. She wouldn’t have to wait long. Tsunade was striding over and already holding out her arms.

“Sakura! You’ve come back!” Sakura vanished into a hug that was probably smothering her.

Yamato kept his eyes on the rig. The hug signaled safety and, yes, there they came. He kept his face blank but he was surprised to see so many emerge. So young, too, and _whole_. Dressed in strange, diaphanous white cloth but whole.

A blonde with hair to her waist, her pale eyes sharp. She was never more than a few feet from her comrades. She was protective of them, even more so than Sakura.

A brunette with her hair in two buns. Yamato watched her stash two guns in the back seat before walking forward. He saw a knife in a sheath strapped to her thigh. She knew how to handle hardware.

A black-haired girl who lingered near the back, arms wrapped around her own waist and her chin tucked down. She seemed to be muttering to herself. Her eyes kept flicking back to the rig.

Another blonde, this one with facial tattoos. At first Yamato thought he was a girl with hair that was very poorly cropped, but he took a wide stance and crossed his arms over his chest before loudly declaring, “Just so you know, us men helped out.”

With that, a very pale boy poked his head out the sunroof. A grey-haired man slithered out of the passenger’s seat and leaned against the engine with his hands in his pockets.

“We have a guy around the place too,” Tsunade said, jerking her head towards Yamato. “Doesn’t mean we take orders from him. Doesn’t mean he takes responsibilities for other people’s accomplishments.”

“Shut up, Naruto,” Sakura hissed. She turned back Tsunade. Yamato could see now that she had a forehead tattoo to match her old mentor’s. “Is it all right that they’re here? They helped us on our way.”

“We don’t turn family away,” Shizune said quietly. “No matter who they bring home with them.”

“Where is it?” Sakura asked, looking around at them all. Her eyes bounced from Tsuma to Kurenai, Yamato to Shizune, and landed on Tsunade. “Where is home?”

There was silence. Yamato couldn’t let that quiet go on indefinitely, though it was not really his place to speak. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“The green…?” Sakura looked so lost. 

Yamato took a breath, but this was his lot in life. He was the one who would say the words no one else could. “We had to leave. It was poisoned. Poisoning us. We’re what’s left. You’re standing in the middle of home.”

Sakura looked around the half-circle of women before her. “Oh,” she whispered. Then, “No. No.” She staggered back, tottering away. The girls and boy she had brought so far in her foul war-rig pressed towards their elders but Sakura turned her back on them.

The pale boy hopped down off the truck and took a few uncertain steps after her.

“Sai,” said the grey-haired man. “Let her be.”

Sakura dropped to her knees. Yamato could hear her sobbing breaths. He doubted she was crying though. There was no water out here and she was a girl from the deserts. She would know better than to cry. Tears were too precious to waste on anything.

“You.”

Yamato looked over. The grey-haired man had his one uncovered eye aimed at Yamato. His nose and mouth were covered by a scarf as well, but it all served to focus his intensity to a single point.

“Yes?” Yamato said.

“Why are you here?”

Yamato shrugged. “There was nowhere else to go.”

“You’re not a girl?”

“No.”

“Did people start out thinking you were a girl?” The grey-haired man jerked his head towards the blonde boy with facial tattoos, who was explaining something to Tsuma that seemed to require a great deal of gesturing and sound effects. “You another Naruto?”

“No.”

“Why’re you here with them, then?”

“I kill for people who would kill for me,” Yamato said. “I protect something I believe in. And they let me plant whatever I can.”

“Plant?”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

Yamato squinted. “Who are you?”

“Kakashi.”

“I meant more along the lines of why do you care about plants.”

“Only a fucking idiot doesn’t care about plants,” Kakashi said firmly. “If I have to eat another person again… Never mind. Show me what you have.”

Yamato moved back to his motorcycle and pulled open one of his saddlebags. A few of his little terrariums greeted him. In skulls and in bent metal cups were small shoots of green. “Only what I can take with me.”

Kakashi stared into the bags. “That’s amazing. You’ve got the green Sakura’s been talking about this whole time.”

Yamato blinked. “I suppose.”

“When can you make it bigger? When can you make it so it’ll last?” Kakashi’s tone was urgent, as if they were about to run out of time.

“Never,” Yamato said. “Not before I die. We’ve met nothing but dust and sand since we had to leave home. Nothing can grow.”

“They manage it back at that citadel,” Kakashi said. He reached out with one finger and stroked a soft, green leaf with his cracked fingernail. It looked like he’d broken a few fingers on his left hand and wrapped the whole mess in a rag. “Hanging goddamn gardens. Eden. Or the reverse of Eden, the garden at the end of the world.”

“Nedeh,” said the blond boy that everyone kept calling Naruto. He nodded sagely at his nonsense sound as Yamato and Kakashi looked at him.

“What?” Kakashi said.

“Nedeh’s the end of the world version of Eden. ‘Nedeh’ is ‘Eden’ backwards, yanno.” He beamed with pride.

Kakashi cocked his head. Yamato found himself smiling faintly. This boy was bizarre.

“So what’re we doing now?” Naruto asked. He peered around at everyone, eyes intent. There was a silence not even Yamato could fill.

“We can cross the salt flats,” Sakura said. She was standing again, lord knows how. Yamato raised his eyebrows at her strength. She had lost a vision of home but already she was rallying powerfully. “There’s something on the other side. There has to be. The green just… moved. How far could we go?”

“The way we’re stocked right now, we can keep going for a hundred and thirty days,” Shizune said.

Yamato frowned but said nothing. It was not his place.

“I think we have enough stashed for everyone to get their own motorcycle,” Kurenai offered. 

“Got that?” Tsunade snapped. “Everyone gets her own motorcycle but the deal is you have to take care of it yourself.”

“Easy,” snorted the girl with her hair in buns.

“Oh dear,” whispered the dark-haired, nervous girl.

“It’s okay, Hinata, I’ll help you,” said the blonde girl comfortingly.

“Hey, guy,” Naruto hissed in Yamato’s ear. “Can I get, like, some pants and stuff? This gauzy crap is super drafty and weird and I never liked it, yanno.”

Yamato sighed and dug through one of his bags. “Does that other boy have nothing for you?”

“Sai kinda showed up accidentally,” Naruto said, accepting Yamato’s spare pants and immediately yanking them on. “He’s got nothing with him. None of us do except Sakura, actually. All the girls and me had to get out real fast and then the other boys kinda… dropped in.”

“It’s a pretty good story,” offered the boy Sai, walking over. “I attempted to apprehend the war-rig under orders. This man”—he pointed at Kakashi—“was a loner we picked up. He was a hood ornament who escaped. I followed them all to attempt to redeem myself in the eyes of the Warlord. I have seen the error that comes from collective thinking, though, and have decided to make my own choices in this world.”

“That’s nice,” Yamato said, trying to get a better look at Kakashi’s face. The man had been alone? For how long? How had he survived by himself? Kakashi turned his head, keeping his eyepatch aimed firmly at Yamato.

“Anyone got a really good tit-binding tactic?” Naruto called. “These things are bugging me and I want ‘em gone.”

“I got a solution,” Tsuma said. She started walking over.

“Here,” Yamato said, tossing a spare shirt at Naruto. “It needs mending but it should work for you.”

“Thanks! What’s your name?”

“Yamato.”

“Thanks, Yamato!” Naruto crowed happily. He grinned at Tsuma. “You’re all super nice, yanno! I like this waaaaay better than the stupid Citadel!”

“We’ll camp by the rig tonight, then set out tomorrow,” Tsundae said. “Everyone, get settled.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the fact that there was literally no place to hide in this wasteland, Kakashi still managed to vanish. Yamato kept an eye out during dinner. Naruto’s storytelling was very distracting, as was his antagonistic-yet-affectionate relationship with every single member of the war-rig team. 

He was explaining the battle and how they had escaped “from that old creep’s castle thanks to this suuuuuper old lady, she was seriously _so old_ , but I guess she was all right cuz we got out of there fine. Shit only hit the fan when Sai and that grey-haired guy showed up, oh man! Well, the whole fleet from the citadel was chasing us, and the guys from Gastown, and the guys from Bulletville or whatever. But Sakura drives like a fucking champ! Sakura’s the coolest! She saved us from getting, uh. From.”

Naruto sat down with a thump on the sand. The little lantern they’d all clustered around made the tattoos on his face dance with shadow and light. Yamato saw that all of the girls were watching the little flame. The dark-haired, anxious one named Hinata was crying with her eyes wide open. Kurenai put an arm around her shoulders, a featherlight touch, and while Hinata flinched at first, she relaxed after only a moment.

“We were all new,” said the blonde girl suddenly. “She couldn’t save the last batch but she could save us.”

Sakura sighed. It was a deep, drawn-out sound that lasted far longer than it should have. “I did what I could, Ino. That’s all.”

“We thank you for it,” said the blonde, Ino. Sakura smiled at her.

Yamato quietly faded away. He disliked thinking about what women were subjected to. He went looking for Kakashi.

The man was laying out on the roof of the war-rig. His hands were linked under his head and he was stargazing. Yamato made a few innocuous noises to signal his presence and sat down near the man’s feet. “Good evening.”

Kakashi grunted.

“Do your companions know your name?” Yamato asked.

“They’re not my companions. And no.”

“Why me and not them?”

Kakashi shrugged. 

Yamato sighed and moved on. “How did you survive in the wasteland alone?”

Kakashi lifted his head to get a good look at Yamato. “Why’re you asking?”

“Because I didn’t think that was possible.”

“What do you mean?”

“Solitude in such a harsh place as this seems… impractical if not impossible. How did you live that way?”

“I didn’t,” Kakashi said. His head dropped back into his hands. “Clearly. Since I’m here. And I was stuck in some dungeon before this.”

“But you’re old.”

“I’m not old.”

Yamato frowned. “Why is your hair grey, then?”

“My dad’s hair was.”

“Oh. You remember your father?”

“Yeah. You don’t?”

“I suppose I’m… I was part of some genetic experiment. I was the only one left alive when the people who found me broke into the lab. I have no concrete memories before I was found by a group of warboys and brought to the original home of these women. Some nightmares have led me to believe I blocked that time out. It’s irrelevant. They overthrew the men and allowed me to remain and help with the gardens until we had to leave.”

“You part of a breeding program?” Kakashi said. It was impossible to tell what his opinions on the matter were.

“Ah, no. The results of the genetic experimentation render… No. I’m more curious how you survived for so many years alone.”

“Now I’m curious though.” Kakashi sat up, crossed his legs, and gave Yamato his full attention. “I don’t like talking about the past, you don’t like talking about your dick. I’ll trade you, answer for answer. You deal with boners?”

“Not… often.” Yamato rubbed a hand over his face, trying to smudge away the blush he was sure was growing there. “Can you tell me how long you were alone in the wasteland?”

“Until maybe a month ago,” Kakashi said. “Warboys from the Citadel caught up to me and dragged me in so they could test my resistance to disease. Are you attracted to guys?”

Yamato had to think. Previously, his interactions with men had all revolved around him murdering at their command. He hadn’t really had any particular physical desire towards them. He’d experienced indifference or deference depending on the situation. Everyone was too alike, too focused on death. He was liking this interaction, though. It seemed that there were different kinds of men out there, and Yamato was quite interested in learning more about this man.

“I would have to say that it’s almost unheard of,” Yamato finally said.

“You had to think pretty hard about that one.”

“…My experiences with men have just suffered a dramatic shift.”

“Oh, did I rock your world?”

Yamato blinked at him. The man looked entirely innocent and earnest in his inquiry, which made Yamato very suspicious. “I suppose so,” he said eventually. “You have been a change. And Naruto and Sai, of course.”

“Your turn to ask a question,” Kakashi reminded him.

“Oh. Yes. When—? No, I mean…” It was hard to remember what he’d wanted to ask. Yamato shook his head to clear stray thoughts and said, “What was your reason for surviving alone in the wasteland?” 

This was apparently the wrong question to ask. Kakashi leaned back as if Yamato had punched him. 

“You don’t have to answer,” Yamato said quickly. “I understand if—”

“Everyone I’ve travelled with since I was tall enough to see over the dashboard has died,” Kakashi said. The words fell slowly from his mouth, as if he rolled each one around before speaking it. “I think… Sakura said something. Back when she was trying to convince me to help her, or at least to not hijack the war rig and leave her charges to be picked up by the Citadel again. She said she was looking for redemption. That’s what I’m doing too, sometimes. When I’m not obsessed with surviving the night.”

Yamato nodded after a moment. “I see.”

“So you’ve never gotten laid?”

“No,” Yamato said. “Is this really all you want to talk about?”

Kakashi shrugged. “You’re pretty cute. You’re my age. You know plants. I want to see what’s under all those layers you have on.”

Yamato covered his eyes with his hand. “This is. Profoundly unexpected.”

“So think about it.”

Yamato slid his hand from his eyes down to cup his chin. He propped his head up on one elbow and squinted thoughtfully. “All right.”

“All right let’s get our pants off or all right you’ll consider taking pants off?”

“The latter. Would you like to start with kissing?” Yamato asked. “Kurenai owns a collection of erotic novels and that’s typically how these scenarios—”

“Oh my god,” Kakashi said. “Would she be willing to trade some of them? I need new material.”

“I’m sure she needs new material as well,” Yamato said.

Kakashi sighed happily. “This is already an amazing start. Okay, let’s do this.” He slid forward on the sand, fisted his hand in Yamato’s first vest, and pulled his mask down with one finger. His face was far too close for Yamato to get an idea of what he looked like, but kissing turned out to be a great distraction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Know how hard it is to come up with enough named women in Konoha to make this AU possible? It is very hard.
> 
> Yes Naruto is trans. I wanted to keep Team Seven: 2.0 together, ran with this idea and really liked it. Kakashi is not using correct terminology because why would he know it, they're in a dystopian hellscape. Do not be like Kakashi.


	18. Wrong File

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one probably fits into the chapter 'it takes a village to get Naruto through high school' somewhere.

11:58pm

Ino clicked on the attachment link for the third time. “Come onnnnn, fucker, _load _.”__

She’d had to change the file name at the last minute because it had been called “Jerkoff_essay.docx”. The Nausicaa chapter of _Ulysses_ wasn’t subtle (part of the reason Ino had selected it for close analysis). Now it was just called “Nausicaa_FINAL.pdf” which was boring but much more professional.

The clock on the corner of her computer ticked over another minute. Was this how hackers felt? She should not feel this stressed about emailing her assignment. The window for sending the essay in “by the end of the day Sunday” was about to expire and then Mr. Hatake would count it late and Sakura would get a better grade even though that bitch definitely didn’t understand _Ulysses_ any more than Ino did. Sakura would be getting a better grade for the sole reason that she proofed her essays only once so she’d have more free time to do her kickboxing and shit. Ino had caught a couple idea discrepancies on her fourth pass through her own essay so she knew that reading through a draft more than once was the better way, but now she was really regretting her perfectionist tendencies.

“Come on come on come on,” Ino hissed, watching the blue loading bar creep forward. She darted a look at the clock again.

11:59pm

But how many seconds did she have left? Was she doomed? She’d worked so hard on this essay! Why couldn’t this have happened earlier? It should have happened when the email didn’t matter, like on Saturday when she’d sent Sakura a sample of the new porn fanfic she was writing.

12:00am

“FUCK,” Ino roared.

From the other room she heard her dad roll over in bed. “Sweetie? Watch the language. And keep it down, all right?”

“Yeah, Dad, sorry.” She put her head on her desk and groaned. When she looked up again, the computer screen was blue. “No no no no no!”

But it was too late. She’d been blue screen’d. This would take forever. She let the computer turn itself off gently and then slumped back. She was going to have to tell Mr. Hatake that she’d had technical difficulties. He wasn’t going to be pleased. The man had no chill, even though she was pretty sure he actually took naps in class when they had timed essays.

Ino watched her computer reboot with dull eyes. Then she said, “Fuck it,” and hit the power button on the tower. She staggered to her bed. This wasn’t worth losing any more sleep over. It was going to be late either way. At least she could grab six hours before she had to be up to run to class.

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__6:00am_ _

__Ino’s phone alarm went off._ _

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__6:15am_ _

__Ino’s other phone alarm went off._ _

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__6:20am_ _

__Ino’s back-up phone alarm went off._ _

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__6:30am_ _

__Ino’s fourth phone alarm went off._ _

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__6:35am_ _

__The snooze wore off the fourth phone alarm and so it went off again._ _

__“Fuuuuuck,” Ino groaned. She kicked off her blankets and glared at the pale lavender canopy above her bed. She had twenty minutes to get dressed and do her hair and makeup, and ten minutes to get to school._ _

__She sat up in bed with a jolt when she remembered the essay. She kicked the computer power button, slammed the monitor screen on, and set a record for the fastest shower-makeup-outfit session she’d ever accomplished. Her eyeliner was flawless and she had a cereal bar stuffed in one cheek by the time her computer wheezed itself through connecting to the internet._ _

__6:52am_ _

__Her essay uploaded in a flash. Ino laughed in triumph as she hit send. Then she had to book it out the door because odds were, she was going to be late to chemistry._ _

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__7:09am_ _

__Ino slid into her seat, wincing under Asuma’s glare. He hadn’t finished attendance though and she was at the end of the list, so he only sighed deeply when he called, “Yamanaka.”_ _

__“Here!”_ _

__“Yeah, I saw that. Try being ‘here’ before the bell rings though, all right?”_ _

__“Yessir!”_ _

__To her left, Shikamaru snickered to himself. Ino scratched the side of her nose with her middle finger and glared at him out of the corner of her eye._ _

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__8:15am_ _

__As the bell rang for passing period, Ino ducked out the door and sprinted for the cafeteria. She needed a snack. There was no way she’d make it to lunch without something to munch on. Like an apple. Or a bag of carrotsticks. Or fries, if the cafeteria was selling them._ _

__The cafeteria was selling fries and Ino bought the curly kind because she had suffered this morning. She spotted pink hair and tiptoed up behind Sakura, trying to eat her fries quietly and also sneak. Sai was sitting across from Sakura and made eye contact. Ino put a french fry over her lips, a signal to be quiet. Then she ate the fry._ _

__“Hello, Ino,” Sai said._ _

__Ino straightened up. “Wow, way to ruin the surprise.”_ _

__Sakura tipped her head back to get a look at Ino. “You’re not good at sneaking anyway. It’s not Sai’s fault. I would have noticed you.”_ _

__“Whatever.” Ino plopped into the seat beside Sakura and yawned hugely._ _

__“You have ketchup on your face,” Sai said._ _

__Ino glared at him. “You’re in a pointing-things-out kind of mood today, huh?”_ _

__Sai ducked his head. He was doodling in a notebook, just drawing 3-D boxes and loops that turned into monsters with a few defining lines added to them._ _

__Ino turned to Sakura. “So I sent you a thing last night.” She winked._ _

__“Yeah, I know,” Sakura said. “I don’t check my email except during first period because we’re in the computer lab. I thought it was kind of late for edits, sorry I haven’t responded.”_ _

__“Late? Well, okay, maybe if you have some ideas I can work that in. I didn’t send it to you to get edits, though.”_ _

__“What?”_ _

__“It’s just porn, dude,” Ino said. “I tried writing some kinkier stuff this time so I’m not sure if it’s accurate but I thought it was kind of hot.”_ _

__Sai coughed quietly. Ino ignored him._ _

Sakura’s eyebrows shot up. “Uh. Well, I mean, I know it’s a dirty chapter but I’m pretty sure you didn’t add anything to _Ulysses_ by analyzing it. And just straight-up masturbating isn’t that kinky, even if it’s in public.” 

__Sai coughed again._ _

__Ino squinted. “What are you talking about?”_ _

__“What are you talking about?’_ _

__“On Saturday I sent you some yaoi bondage fanfic I wrote about--”_ _

Sakura was slowly shaking her head. “You sent me an analysis of the Nausicaa chapter of _Ulysses_.” 

__“What? When did I send it?”_ _

__“At like 6:45 this morning.”_ _

Ino pictured her email address book. She typically typed in the contacts by last name and the rest autofilled. To pull up Mr. Hatake’s email, she typed ‘hat’ for hatake.k@konohahs.nin. To pull up Sakura’s email, she typed ‘har’ for harunosakura@slugmail.com. In her fragile, sleep-deprived, early-morning state she’d probably typed the wrong combination of letters and sent her _Ulysses_ essay to Sakura instead of her teacher. 

__“Shit,” Ino said. “Now I’m going to have to tell Mr. Hatake that the essay’s not getting to him until… tonight…”_ _

__Who had gotten that bondage porn then? Who had she sent that to? Had the email just not gone through? Was her computer acting up even before Sunday night?_ _

__“He’s gonna yell at you,” Sakura sang, cutting through Ino’s worries. She bumped her shoulder against Ino’s and stole a fry. “Come on, our break time’s almost over. Bye, Sai,”_ _

__“Goodbye,” he said, looking up from his doodles. “I’ll see you two at lunch.”_ _

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__8:34am_ _

Ino and Sakura sat together in the middle of the classroom. It was a strategic choice. In the front they were too close to the learning, but in the back were all the slackers. Rock Lee had the whole front row to himself and the girls were content to let him have it. They’d take third row or further. Just because they were both smart didn’t mean they were _nerds_.

__Mr. Hatake always entered the classroom as if he had wandered in by accident on his way to the men’s room. He looked around in mild confusion, and then with an almost visible shrug he resigned himself to being here to teach another lesson about James Joyce._ _

__“There were no essays turned in late this year,” he said after the bell rang. “I’m genuinely impressed. A lot of you sent them in days before the deadline, which is even more amazing. So, because I couldn’t sleep last night, I decided to go through them all and give them back early. Please, hold your applause.”_ _

__Rock Lee, too straightforward to understand sarcasm, looked at his hands in confusion._ _

__Mr. Hatake was probably the most facetious teacher Ino had ever encountered. He didn’t even pause for the kiss-ups to laugh at his dry statements. Not that there were any students still trying to brownnose Mr. Hatake. He repelled all attempts to become teacher’s pet with a dead-eyed stare that was made incredibly intimidating by the fact that he had one glass eye. The only way you could tell which eye was glass was because the left one had a scar running through it. Both of them were completely devoid of life when Mr. Hatake thought you were trying to befriend him._ _

__He moved around the room, dropping papers carelessly on desks as he passed students. They had to scramble sometimes to catch the print-outs before they scattered. Ino took a deep breath and steeled herself to confront him with the truth. He hadn’t noticed that she hadn’t turned her essay in on time so she was going to have to tell him herself._ _

__“Mr. Hatake?” Ino said as he plopped Sakura’s essay on her desk. “I was having technical difficulties this weekend and I--”_ _

__Mr. Hatake deposited a printed essay on her desk. He was smiling very slightly. His right eye twinkled. And then he moved on, chucking Kiba’s essay across the room. Kiba had to stand up on his chair to catch it before it hit Shino._ _

__Ino looked down at the essay on her desk. There were too many line-breaks for it to be her completed essay. There were quotes starting paragraphs because the ‘quotes’ were actually dialogue. It took her a few seconds to focus on the title._ _

_enough to make my system blow_

__Ino gripped the edge of the table. She felt like she was slowly tipping sideways._ _

__“Oh no,” she whispered._ _

__From a long way away, Ino heard Sakura ask if she was okay._ _

__Written in red at the very top of Ino’s gay bondage dungeon pornographic fanfic, right where the staple met the heavily creased edges that meant this whole packet had been opened and read by her English teacher, in messy handwriting that was unmistakably Mr. Hatake’s, was:_ _

_nice._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nothing says ‘explicit gay sex’ like Imagine Dragons lyrics amirite. if I see another post-apocalyptic AU with a title pulled from the first lines of ‘Radioactive’ I am going to sigh so hard I fling myself into the sun.
> 
> The Nausicaa chapter of _Ulysses_ was famous at my college for being the chapter about Leopold Bloom jerkin it and the fireworks are a metaphor.


	19. Critique My Dick Pic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter contains dick pic critiques which were taken and edited from two different websites that are nsfw. No actual pictures or anything particularly graphic shows up in here.
> 
> Really I had the most fun making up what's in the jonin clubhouse. Based on nothing except what I think a shinobi clubhouse would contain.

“Since you’re a jonin captain, you’re allowed in the clubhouse,” Asuma said, clapping Yamato on the shoulder as he threw open the green aluminum door that led to what Kakashi had always described as the jonin rec room.  Yamato peered inside with no small amount of curiosity.

There were puffy couches with shuriken sticking out of the arms and long strips of tape covering up kunai stab wounds.  A small lending library consisting of out-of-date bingo books, battered weapons encyclopedias, and even more battered pornographic magazines was spread across a scratched coffee table that, in defiance of logic, had pieces of paper wedged under all four legs to keep it from wobbling.  Someone had brought in bagels once upon a time, but that time had been long ago and the one bagel left resembled something that Yamato could have grown.  The computers lining one wall were at least as old as Yamato himself.  A full-length whiteboard was packed with answers to a prompt written across the top, which asked ‘what is the silliest thing you have worn on a mission?’  A couple bulletin boards were papered with flyers that had once been brightly colored, but which the sun had faded to various shades of pastel.  Another bulletin board seemed to be devoted entirely to photographs taken with the communally-owned jonin camera, an ancient polaroid camera currently sitting atop its sign-out sheet. It was only used to take team photos or Christmas party blackmail material now that they had access digital cameras.  On the final wall was a huge map of the nations which, like the flyers, had faded until the only colors left were orange, pale blue, and green.

“This is very nice,” Yamato said politely.

“Nah, it’s a shithole,” Asuma said.  He lit a cigarette and grinned, smoke leaking from the corner of his mouth.  “But it’s our shithole.  Be careful sitting on the couch.  It’s seen a lot of action.”

“I’m sure it has,” Yamato said.

“Kakashi and this one guy almost broke it once,” Asuma continued conversationally.  

“I’m not surprised.”

“I think Anko took it as some kind of challenge because then she and these two other kunoichi, maybe you’ve heard of them, Yugau and—”

“What are these?” Yamato fast-walked over to the bulletin boards and stared at the nearest flyer.  “I see someone’s teaching music lessons for fun and genjutsu.”

“Oh, no.  Not anymore.  He died,’ Asuma said.

Yamato nodded once, an acknowledgement of a shinobi’s sacrifice.  “Why is the flyer still up, then?”

“I dunno.  No one takes them down.”

It was most likely an unspoken taboo to remove any of these signs.  The corkboard wasn’t even visible beneath all of the flapping paper.  Taking out a single senbon or tack would send an avalanche cascading down.  And it was a bit of a reminder, of all the things shinobi had offered before (apart from their lives and service to the village, which were a given).

“The other board is way more interesting,” Asuma said.  Yamato heard him snicker.  With some trepidation, he turned.

It took a moment for it to sink in.  This board was a big contrast to the disorganized, bright tangle of flyers spattered on the bulletin board next to it.  The photographs were regularly spaced, very few of them overlapping, and there was a notecard stuck beneath each one with a few lines of text.  One picture had an entire sheet of paper stuck beneath it that had been folded to the size of an index card but which was in fact a miniature essay someone had half-unfolded and then had been unable to refold along the original lines.  

Yamato was distracted from reading the notecards and mini-essays, though, because all of the polaroids hung on this particular board were pictures of dicks.

“I,” Yamato said, and then he squinted and turned his head to the side.  “This is strangely artistic.  The chiaroscuro in this one is amateur but good.”

“Well yeah,” Asuma said.  He pointed up.

Someone had affixed a nice wooden sign to the wall above the board that had ‘Critique My Dick Pic’ carefully burned into it in large, round letters.

“Huh,” Yamato said.  “So the premise is…?”

“You stick up a dick pic and someone critiques it,” Asuma said. “No one’s sure who it is, which really speaks to their stealth.”

“And why do people do this?”

Asuma shrugged.  “Whoever it is really knows their dicks.”

Yamato let out a small cough.  “Ah.  Not the photography?”

“Oh yeah, that too.  But you know, it’s the subject matter that’s really important.”

“Is this like… A hookup board, or—?”

“Oh, no no no, we have some of those in the regular mission assignment room. We don’t wanna limit the dating pool to jonin.  It’s kinda fucked up if you think you can only date your rank level.  We have separate boards down there for kinky people, folks looking to hook up, and a missed connections thing.  But some jonin decided they wanted to critique dick pics and so they made this.”  He patted the board fondly, then adjusted a few photos that were askew.

Yamato pulled the pin out of one card beneath a photo that was almost a full-body shot of a completely naked shinobi leaning against an exterior wall in a shaft of sunlight.  The critic had written:

> Seductive & striking portrait.  Natural talent for posing, subtle pride in showing off that fine body yet remaining at ease & elegant.  Kudos to cameraperson & to you for your exhibitionism. How did you do this outside without folks trying to jump you?

Yamato stuck the note back on the board and furtively wiped his fingers on his pants.  “I see.  And people do entire photoshoots for this board?”

“Yep. It’s kind of a challenge at this point. Artsy, a little bit of transformation jutsu work to keep your identity questionable. It’s all a really good exercise. Or so I’m told.” Asuma’s teeth gleamed around the butt of his cigarette.

Yamato scanned the polaroids.  Some were grainy and a bit out of focus, some made him wince with second-hand embarrassment because there was no way that ninja meant to have a cat cleaning its anus in the background of the photo, and some were standard fare close-ups of a penis at rest.  Yamato scanned a few other responses from the critic.

> You made an effort to zoom out & include your body, but you would benefit from even more non-dick body parts in the shot. You rushed here. I see half a mission scroll in the corner & positioning is off-center. Try again please!!!

> Refreshing to see a dick pic with a strap-on & pair of boobs in it. Deliberate, flirty pose enhanced by fishnets & natural sunlight. Glare in the upper third is hard on the eye but that’s the only thing that’s hard on the eye here! 

> A close up shot of your dick with little other surrounding detail? Meh. Over-the-sink is boring. No interaction between you & your dick OR you & the camera. Medical level of detail. You have a better dick pic in you, I know it.

> This is excellent & very carefully composed. The towel brings movement, anonymity & subtlety to the shot. Two different light sources bring warmth & toes tucked behind your calf is precious. Friendly & I like it. Nice!!!!

There was a definite range that surprised Yamato, made him aware of the fact that he’d had limited experience with genitalia. Not all dick picks were created equal, it seemed. Only a few people had dared to get interactive, to move beyond ‘junk existing in space and time.’ Some people had taken their self-interactions further than Yamato was comfortable looking at. Some went a lot further.

Yamato half-covered his eyes with his hand when he reached a dick pic that had been given a place of honor at eye-level. “Oh lord.”

Asuma laughed.  “Oh yeah!  The dick pic critic—ha, say that three times fast—they had a lot to say about that one.”

Yamato spent a moment trying to recognize the person who was, well, auto-fellating, then decided he didn’t want to know who they were.  The half-unfolded essay beneath the picture was in slightly different handwriting from previous samples, the symbols no longer in the rounded hand that looked as if each letter had been copied straight from a children’s workbook as some sort of deliberate handwriting disguise tactic, but instead the critic had grown jagged with excitement.

> I recognize this from an earlier session! Shameless salacious material like this is such a treat.  You zoomed in on a wonderful talent in this new set, well done.  Unequalled size & perfection of shape, firm grip with your fingers (I see you broke a couple, nice you got mobility back), the soft touch of your own lips to tender tip, all up-close & in full detail.  Awesome!!!!  The ‘9’ in the corner suggests more from this photoshoot may surface. I look forward to it. ;3c

“What does this symbol mean?” Yamato asked. He tapped the semicolon, three, and c combination at the end of the mini-essay.

Asuma gave him a weird look.  “It’s an emoji.”

“What?”

“A texting thing.  I dunno why the person drew it, but. You make faces with punctuation.  Emojis.  This one means, like, uh.”  Asuma tapped the ash off his cigarette and on to the floor, just missing the edge of a worn throw rug.  “It’s like, a winking cat?  That’s checking you out and likes what it sees?”

Yamato said, “I see,” because he didn’t understand it but it didn’t matter.  It clearly wasn’t the signature of the dick pic critic.  Nevertheless, it was still exhaustingly obvious who was doing this.

“Thank you for showing me around,” Yamato said to Asuma. “It’s a nice space.”

“Yeah, it’s only empty right now because most folks’re on missions. Come hang out a few times and you’ll get a sense of the rhythm of this place.”

“Thank you, I will.”

Asuma grinned. “And hey, make sure your transformation jutsu is original before you send shit to the dick pic critic. They’re pretty fussy about including different body types.”

“I wasn’t planning on submitting anything but thanks.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I noticed that a particular shinobi doesn’t seem to have any interest in using transformation jutsu for his dick pic submissions.” Yamato tapped a photograph.

> This is fun, playful & carefully executed. Flirtatiously lifting your dress while covering that smile is enticing. The blurriness seems deliberate & gives sense of movement. The kind of full-body (& face!!! nice eyeliner!!!) dick pic I encourage! 

“Yeah, he’s pretty shameless,” Asuma sighed. “The make-up was a decent touch but for once, covering up the lower half of his face was a bad idea. Totally gave him away.”

“Shameless,” Yamato repeated. 

“It’s weird not to see him on the hook-up board lately. Even with all this free advertising.”

“I’m sure he has some strange reasons of his own.”

“Yeah, he’s a weird guy. I can’t see him settling with just one person but eh. It’s not my business.”

“Mm. Well, thanks again, Asuma.”

“No problem. See ya around here?”

“Yes, you will.”

“Cool.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I saw that board you run. In the jonin clubhouse.” 

Kakashi turned a page in his book. “Yeah? Prove it.”

“Who would I prove it too? Who would care? I was just letting you know.”

“Huh. How’d you work that one out?”

“Just because you submit a blatant photo of yourself doesn’t mean you aren’t above suspicion. And the wood you made that sign out of is something I grew.”

Kakashi looked up at that. “Wait.”

Yamato blinked. “…Yes?”

Kakashi seemed to be savoring a moment, then he said, “So you recognized your own wood on the Critique My Dick Pic board.”

Yamato covered his face with both hands but his sigh still echoed through their apartment. Kakashi cackled.


	20. Nicknames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sort of a weird combo my friend prompted me for. This one's based on a PornHub screenshot, and also based on our silliest idea for how Team Seven figured out Kakashi and Yamato were physically/emotionally involved. It's ninjaverse except for the PornHub thing. And references to smartphones and WiFi.
> 
> These just keep getting more ridiculous.

Yamato paused in the doorway.  “What is that?”

Kakashi poked his head out from under the desk.  “Oh, Tenzo!  Good, you’re back.  I thought your mission wasn’t done for another week.”

“You could have checked the schedule,” Yamato reminded him.  He pointed towards the kitchen, where he’d put up this month’s break-down of who was on a mission for how long.  It was color-coded.

Kakashi ducked back under the desk  “Well, you’re here, so make the thing work.”

Yamato paused in taking off his shoes.  “You want me to set up a computer for you?”

“Yep.”  

“Where did you even get this?”

“Mission desk was having an electronics sale.”

“…So you bought a computer older than you are.”

“Don’t be stupid.  No computers are older than me.  I bought a computer that’s older than Naruto.”

“And you don’t know how it works but you bought it.”

“Yep.”  Kakashi dragged himself out from under the desk and stood triumphant in front of his purchase.  “It’s all plugged in.  Make it go!”

Yamato walked over and pushed the big blue button on the tower, then pushed the power button on the screen.  A horrible hum filled their apartment.

“Sounds just the way I remember,” Kakashi said.  He had to speak a little louder than normal to be heard over the computer.

“This is awful,” Yamato said.  He stared at the loading screen for a while, green text on black.  The boot-up bar lurched forward like a drunk staggering down the street.  Yamato shook his head and turned away. “I’m going to start my laundry.”

“No no no no no,” Kakashi insisted, dragging Yamato back.  “You have to make it work!”

“It won’t be ready for at least five minutes,” Yamato said.  “Let me change out of mission clothes at least.”

Kakashi permitted him to change into sweatpants, but dragged him back into the living room before he could get off his undershirt.  “It’s all done loading.  Make it go.”

The desktop was an unsettling blue.  Yamato was surprised to see that there were icons already.  “This came preinstalled with document applications?”

Kakashi stared at him.  “What?  I don’t care about that.  Make the internet work.”

There were so few privately-owned devices in Konoha (it wasn’t safe to give away your position because you forgot to turn your phone into airplane mode) that the internet speed was truly incredible.  Yamato signed on to their building’s WiFi and pulled up a browser.  “Here you go.”

“Okay, now make me a PornHub account.”

Yamato jerked back from the computer.  “No!”

“Come on, you gotta help this old man.”  Kakashi gave him a pitiful look.

“Kakashi, you’re only four years older than me.”

“No, I’m old and feeble and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.  Do technology for me please.”

“You are not old, why--”

“I will give you a romantic moonlit blowjob, complete with rose petals and candles, if you help me make a PornHub account.”

Yamato’s lips thinned.  He crossed his arms over his chest.

Kakashi tried another tactic.  “I’d ask Rin to make one for me but I don’t trust her not to fuck with my account and make it so the only thing I could watch would be hardcore furry porn or something.  Solely for her own amusement.”

Yamato sighed.  “I would advise you to get better friends but I know you barely deserve the ones you have.”

“I’d fight you about that statement but I really, really want a PornHub account,” Kakashi said.

“Fine.  Is there a chair for the desk or are you just going to stand there?  This may take a while.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamato ran his laundry and flipped through his home decorating magazines.  He had found some exciting new articles on wainscoting to read while he waited for the dryer to buzz.  By the time he had lugged his clean clothes up to the apartment again, he had hoped Kakashi would be satisfied with his porn quota for the day.

It was a fragile hope.  Yamato had known it was fragile and unlikely and foolish perhaps.  It proved to be all of those things.  There was a moat of crumpled tissues surrounding the bench Yamato had made for the new computer desk but Kakashi was still busy.  

Yamato never knew what to do in situations where he walked in on his roommate masturbating, since he was usually involved in the activity somehow.  Kakashi was fairly intent on the video playing on the screen, though.  He had headphones on and was…occupied.  

Morbid curiosity compelled Yamato to squint at the screen.  It was a video set in a hospital.  A doctor was in the early stages of a routine physical, but— 

Yamato spotted a place to type in a comment for a comment section. He discreetly reached around for the keyboard.  He tugged it out of Kakashi’s line of sight and then just as decorously snagged the mouse.  He clicked to add a comment and began to type.   _The stethoscope isn’t even in his ears as he listens to her heart/lungs._

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Kakashi said.  “You’re pointing out plot inconsistencies?”

“It’s true,” Yamato said. 

“No one wants to listen to nitpicking while they’re jacking off.”

Yamato shrugged.  “You’re the one who wanted a PornHub account even if you can’t navigate it without my help.  You can watch any videos you—”  He froze.  “Please tell me you just threw water on my face.”

“You look over my shoulder at a time like this, babe, I can’t be blamed for what happens.”

“You…”  Yamato closed his eyes and sighed, unable to come up with a word to describe how infuriating and disgusting this was.  

“You’re going to want to shower,” Kakashi said after a moment. “Here, I’ll join you and it’ll be a sexy shower.”

“Not every shower has to be sexy.  Sometimes I just have to get _your_ jizz out of _my_ hair.”

“Every shower you take is sexy, babe.”

“Why are you calling me babe? When did this start?”

“It makes you turn pink.  It’s hilarious. I’m going to do this forever now.”  

Yamato tried to glare but he was blushing too hard for it to be effective.  “I’ll leave you alone with your PornHub.”

“You’re missing out,” Kakashi called after him, and then added, “babe!” Yamato’s glare intensified. So did his blush.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was incessant after that.  Kakashi would stretch during the mission meetings, leaning back until his head was right by Yamato’s, and then whisper, “Lookin’ good, babe.”  By the time he’d tilted his chair back to its rightful position, Yamato would have his head turtled down between his shoulders and his cheeks would be glowing.

Yamato was surprised to find that, in contrast to his new habit of calling Yamato ‘babe,’ Kakashi’s love for PornHub was short-lived.

“The plots are pretty good but the acting is bad.  Until the sex starts, I mean.  You know I like at least a minute or two of decent foreplay.”

“You just don’t think there’s enough romance in it,” Yamato said.  He cast a pointed look at the novel Kakashi was reading for the eighteenth time.  “Admit it; you like when they talk about their feelings in terms of the tides or the wind or something equally saccharine.”

Kakashi raised an eyebrow.  “Oh?  You think I need more romance in my life, babe?”

“Stop.”

“Awww, babe, don’t be like that.”

Yamato turned his reddening face away.  “Seriously, you need to stop.  Someone’s going to hear you.”

“Nah.  If anyone finds out you and I are hooking up—”

“We _live together_ and have for several years.  We are well beyond hooking up.”

“—it’ll be because I grab you one day and slam you against a wall and start making out with you in front of Leaf Village’s jonin.  All of them.”

Yamato winced.  “Don’t you dare.”

“Maybe I’ll do it in front of Naruto…”

“Oh for— _Really_ don’t you dare.  If I have to have yet another conversation about appropriate behavior in public because of you, and if I have to use myself as an example, I am going to— ”

Kakashi clapped Yamato on the shoulder.  “Babe!  Don’t be like that!”

“Shut up!”  Yamato initiated a furious shoving battle that threw Kakashi off the couch and onto the floor.  It was a brief victory, though, because Kakashi easily dragged him down to the floor as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another day, another reconnaissance mission to Hidden Stone.  Yamato had refused Naruto’s request that he use “build-a-house-really-fast no jutsu” on the grounds that if Naruto couldn’t remember what it was actually called, he didn’t deserve to reap the benefits of it.  Naruto had whined extensively and at length.  Yamato had used his scary face.  Sai had offered to hold Naruto if he was cold that night and had been screamed at.  Sakura had been forced to intervene and smack her teammates.  Everyone was on edge.

Actually, Kakashi was disgustingly relaxed.  He’d insisted that Yamato take point on this one because, “I want to see you in action, Tenzo.  Direct these teens.  Be in charge.  Let’s see what ANBU taught you.”

“We don’t need directing,” Naruto grumbled.

“Yes, Kakashi-senpai,” Yamato had said, surprise clear in his voice.

“I can do the fire,” Kakashi added.  “If that’ll help.  The rest of you set up camp.”

He had chosen wisely.  In the midst of the yelling and punching that was Team Seven 2.0 at their finest, Kakashi was peacefully feeding the fire clean sticks that wouldn’t create smoke.  He heated up water for tea while Yamato gave an impromptu threatening-yet-inspiring speech about 1) sexual harassment and 2) overreacting.  He hummed a little to himself, wandered off for more sticks, and came back to find the tea water bubbling.  He unfolded the origami travel cups that Sai had made, activated the jutsu that would ensure no one burned their fingers, and poured his own cup of tea because they were still going strong about teamwork and trust and wholesome values and _stop being so homophobic Naruto, and Sai, you stop baiting him._

Finally, Kakashi sat back on his heels and said, “Okay, babe, you can make dinner.  The fire’s ready.”

There was an abrupt silence.

Yamato coughed.

Sakura said, “I fucking called it.”

Sai cocked his head to the side.  “Which one of us is ‘babe’?”

“Dinner!” Naruto yelped happily. 

Yamato pressed his fingertips to his temple.  “Sai, you are not babe.  I am.”

“Oh,” Sai said.  “Thank goodness.  I’m not a very good cook.”

There was a sudden explosion of sparks from the fire.  A chunk of firewood had appeared in the middle of the blaze.

“Wait, where’d Kakashi-sensei go?” Naruto asked.  “Did he Substitution himself away?”

“Yes, I think he did,” Yamato said.  He pulled at the collar of his turtleneck as if he were trying to nudge it up enough to cover the blush that was slowly, relentlessly forming on his cheeks.  “All right.  I’ll make the meal.  You three figure out who’s setting up camp and who’s scouting.  Whoever checks the perimeter, meet back here in half and hour.”  He squatted down by the fire and put away the four paper cups that Kakashi had wedged in the dirt in preparation for pouring tea.  

All of the teens looked at each other.  They looked at Yamato’s stiff spine and tight, sharp movements as he tugged instant soup packets out of his fanny pack.  They all looked at each other again.  There was a silent consensus.  Sakura and Naruto started picking up rocks and pine cones from a flat patch of ground and Sai took to the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kakashi was lounging on a branch, drinking his cup of tea and reading.  He’d read this book a lot but it was proving hard to focus, even during the spicy scenes.  He kept having to put the book down and sigh quietly, squeeze his eye shut, and mentally banish the echo that kept running through his head.

Okay babe okay _babe_ okay _babe_ _**babe**_

“Captain Hatake?”

Kakashi opened his eye.  “Yeah, Sai?”

Sai came around the side of the tree and balanced on the branch in front of Kakashi.  “I have learned that it is standard protocol to use terms of endearment such as ‘babe’ for a significant other.”

“Yep, that’s true.  Those books I recommended to you are really doing the trick, huh?”

“Yes, they have helped.  Thank you for confirming, though.”  Sai cleared his throat.  “I also read that it is standard for a family member or friend, upon learning of a relationship, to deliver what is referred to for some reason I haven’t been able to discover as The Shovel Talk.”

“True again.  I think it’s because you threaten to bury them.”

“Oh?”  Sai paused, considering.  “Oh, I see.  WIth a shovel.  Yes.  A jutsu would be more effective but I can see how it would be better to pick a term that’s inclusive of civilians.  That makes sense.  Thank you.”

“No problem.”  Kakashi shut his book.  He could see where this was going.  

“I believe out of everyone on our team, I am most qualified to deliver this talk,” Sai said.  “As a fellow ANBU operative.”

“Really?” Kakashi said, voice filled with innocent interest.  He wished he had a video camera because he was pretty sure that if he were able to show this to Tenzo, the man would either turn so red he exploded, or cry.  “Well, go ahead then.”

Sai nodded.  He clasped his hands behind his back and straightened his shoulders.  “Do not hurt Captain Yamato, either physically or emotionally.  Or else.”  He relaxed.

Kakashi nodded seriously.  “That was well done.”

“Thank you.”

“Seriously, full marks on that one.  You hit all the major points of a shovel talk.  But I believe you have a team to get back to and there’s dinner waiting, so don’t let me hold you back.”

“Will you be joining us?”

Kakashi cracked the spine on his book.  “Ehhhh, maybe.”

“I am sure Captain Yamato will not berate you in front of us.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want you kids figuring it out like this.  Well, okay, Naruto probably still hasn’t figured it out, but still.”

Sai cocked his head.  “How would you prefer we found it out?”

“Never.”

“Oh.  But we’re shinobi.”

“Doesn’t mean you need to know what’s going on in my personal life.  Or Tenzo’s.  Just because you can gather intelligence doesn’t mean you always should.  I’m just kinda pissed that I gave it away.”

“Yes, that was probably very embarrassing for you,” Sai said.

Kakashi glared down at the page in front of his face.  “Yep, it sure was, Sai.”

“Still, I think it would be best if you showed up before Captain Yamato was forced to come looking for you.”

Kakashi shut his book again and pushed himself up to standing.  “You know, I think you’re right actually.  You head back, I’ll finish your patrol and then come around.  Keep a bowl for me, would you?”

“If Captain Yamato allows it,” Sai said.  He blurred away into the trees, heading back to camp.  

Kakashi looked after him.  He tucked his book away in his pouch and grinned.  Tenzo had someone willing to deliver the Shovel Talk on his behalf.  Fucking adorable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found some damn good Sai-and-Yamato-sort-of-bonding fic that was sad and serious and it reminded me that I had this sitting in my drafts. thank u 100demons for reminding me I hadn't posted this nonsense.


	21. Heavy Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m personally rating this chapter M for disturbing/violent images, homicide, and violence against children. I don’t think it’s worse than an episode of _Law & Order: SVU_, but I can’t watch that show because it makes me cry so M it is for this AU. And Yamato is grumpy and sick for most of it and he has a mini panic-attack/dissociative episode but he's okay. And Kakashi fakes a seizure but he is likewise okay.

Yamato sniffed deeply and turtled his head down into his sweater. He managed to wedge his chin under the collar after some subtle shifting, but it made him suddenly aware of how much stubble he was growing these days. Shaving wasn’t exactly a priority at the moment. Rain was pouring into his loafers (why had he not worn boots today?) and his cold was getting worse. DayQuil wouldn’t cut it forever; he knew at some point soon he was going to have to succumb to the flu for a few days. It was 10pm on a Thursday, so holding out for the weekend normally wouldn’t be too tough, but now there was a woman with brain damage who wasn’t sure if she had killed her husband. Deep hacking sobs were audible from where she was tucked in the back of an ambulance. Yamato’s temporary partner, Kotetsu, was theoretically guarding her and trying to take her statement again. He was probably actually texting his husband selfies with _I miss u soooo much_ as a tagline. 

Yamato sniffed back more snot. He scanned the crowd behind the police barricade. Not many people were willing to rubberneck in the rain, thank goodness, but there were a few folks with umbrellas. Some small children. It was kind of disturbing, how much kids seemed to care about crime scenes. A few were trying to tug their parents over to get a closer look. 

There were brain fragments in the storm drain that hopefully no civilians had seen. Bone chips. Molars. Bits of hair had washed away by now. 

Yamato hated to think this way, but solving murders got kind of repetitive after a while. Folks weren’t too creative about the means of killing each other or the motives. A brain-damaged wife was a new angle, but it probably wouldn’t be long before they figured out if her amnesia was shock or faked. There weren’t any other suspects right now. Probably domestic violence gone wrong. Yamato kept quiet and stuck to the facts when it came to cases with families. If he even started to think about the years of a relationship and how much hurt had to exist before the breaking point, it would affect his work. He couldn’t have that.

A sudden coughing fit brought Yamato back to the present. He hacked up something from the back of his throat and turned away from the crowd to spit it out as politely as he could. When he turned back, his eye immediately fell on a man hopping over the metal rails of the police barricade.

“Sir, step back,” Yamato said. He had to clear his throat to take the rasp out of his voice, and he repeated himself. “Sir, back behind the barricade. This is a crime scene.”

“I know.” The man stuck his hands in the pockets of his faded black sweatpants and cocked his head to the side, ignoring the rain plastering his sweatshirt to his shoulders. “I’m trying to help.” 

“Get back, sir,” Yamato said. He couldn’t tell if the man was old or if he was one of those hipster kids who dyed his hair grey, but he didn’t want to have to get physical just in case. 

“He shot himself,” the man said. He took a hand out his pocket to point to the woman still sobbing in the back of the ambulance. “She didn’t do it. She’s coughing a lot, right? Having trouble talking clearly? Sounds as bad as you do?”

The guy was wearing a blue flu mask. Yamato subtly tried to dab at the trail of snot about to leak out of his nose at any moment. “Back behind the barricade or I’m placing you under arrest.”

The man pulled his other hand out his pocket and offered both wrists. “Go ahead, arrest me. I wanna talk to your captain anyway. And it won’t be the first time I’ve been in cuffs.”

“You have a record?” Yamato said, reaching for the handcuffs on his belt.

The man gave Yamato a slow blink. “No.”

Yamato sniffed back more mucus and sighed. “I don’t want to be brought into some kink scenario. Please. Just get back behind the barricade.”

“Wow, you have no sense of humor. Arrest me, whatever, I don’t care as long as I get to talk to the captain of your precinct.”

“If you would like to file a complaint or if you have information pertaining to this case—“ Yamato began.

“I want to offer my services in solving this case for you,” the man said. “I’m a psychic.”

Yamato gave up on community relations. “Leave. Now. Or I will make you.”

“I want to talk to—“

Yamato grabbed the man’s wrist and shoulder, twisted him around to face the barricade and the three scattered people watching this scene unfold, and pushed. The man’s posture had been deceptively bad, so Yamato found that he was actually a few centimeters shorter than the man, but Yamato knew how to push. They’d trained him for this. 

They didn’t train him for the man suddenly going limp, collapsing back against him and spouting gibberish. Yamato caught him and yelled, “Medic! Medical attention please!” as he eased him towards the ground. It wasn’t a particularly violent episode, no flailing, and the muttering was rapid and breathless and pretty quiet. There was a few millimeters of standing water on the pavement that Yamato didn’t want to set him down in, so he levered the man up on one bent leg and carefully turned him on his side. He held the man’s chest and head out of the water and winced at the wetness seeping into the knee of his pants. 

“What is it?” panted the medic from the ambulance, spraying water with every step she took. 

“Seizure,” Yamato said. “He just went down.”

The medic crouched down but the man was already sitting up, shrugging off Yamato’s arms. “I’m fine, it’s just my visions.”

“What?” the medic said.

“Oh my god,” Yamato groaned.

“I saw a vision of this murder,” the man said seriously. This close to him, Yamato noticed that he had one eyeball that seemed severely out of whack; the iris was a deep red instead of blue-grey like his other eye. 

“What did you see?” the medic asked, brushing her blonde bangs out of her eyes.

“I saw the dead man holding his wife’s head in the water until she wasn’t struggling anymore, and then I saw him take the gun and shoot himself. He botched it a bit, and it took him a little while to die. He kicked her in the stomach while he was… anyway, it rolled her out of danger. She woke up to him dead, the gun nearby, and the recent trauma limiting her memory of what had happened. She’s innocent.”

“What’s your name?” Yamato asked, reaching for his notebook. There had to be some charges he could slap on this guy for wasting his time and also soaking his slacks.

“Kakashi.”

“Is that your first or last name?”

“Last name’s Hatake.”

Yamato wrote it down. “Yeah, we’ll be in touch.”

“I better check her for bruising, if the man hit her in the stomach,” the medic said earnestly. She ran back to the ambulance, but turned back to call, “Thank you for your help, Mr. Hatake!” over her shoulder as she ran.

“Ah, someone who appreciates my gifts,” Kakashi said. “And what was your name, officer?”

Yamato levered himself out of the puddle. “Detective Yamato. You can leave now.”

“I haven’t seen the fruits of my—“

“Oh!” 

Yamato turned at the cry. The medic had a hand over her mouth. The woman had lifted her shirt to reveal a bootprint, already turning purple along one edge. The bruise was right across her solar plexus. 

“Yeah,” Kakashi said, voice close enough to Yamato’s ear that Yamato flinched. “You’re welcome, officer.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamato spent the weekend in bed with a box of tissues and a bag of throat lozenges. He ordered massive amounts of takeout that he couldn’t really afford, but he felt he deserved some kind of remuneration for all the shit that psychic had put him through. It was disturbing to know that there were people out there, people whom Yamato had to work with, that still believed in psychics as viable resources for crime.

The precinct’s resident sketch artist, a serious young man named Sai, brought Yamato soup Sunday night. Yamato wasn’t entirely sure how the man had found his address, but it was pretty good tomato bisque.

“It’s good you didn’t have to work this weekend,” Sai said. “You sound vile. Sir.”

There was often a pause between Sai’s statements and his respectful additions. Yamato was pretty sure it was a subtle undermining of authority figures, but he didn’t really care enough to fight it.

“I was lucky, yes,” Yamato said. “Do you have the remote? We’ve been watching TLC for a while and I want to see what else is on.”

“I heard it was because of a psychic,” Sai said, apparently rendered deaf when faced with a _Say Yes to the Dress_ marathon. 

“Psychics aren’t real,” Yamato said. “It was just a very persistent man who happened to be walking by.”

“But he did help you,” Sai said.

“Technically, yes. Seriously, where’s the remote?”

“I’m tired,” Sai said. He leaned back against all of the couch pillows he’d used to build a throne around himself. His eyes closed and his breathing evened out immediately.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Yamato muttered. He fought his way out of the blanket that his friend Shizune, the county coroner, had crocheted for him last Christmas and turned off the TV manually. He spread the blanket over Sai and went to bed. 

When he got up for a new week at work, Sai was already gone. He’d left behind the folded blanket, a single empty mug in the sink, and a beautiful doodle on a napkin that showed the clouds rolling in from the view out of Yamato’s kitchen window. Yamato tacked it up on his fridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamato walked in to the precinct with a lingering cough, a cup of tea, and the quiet hope that this would be an easy week. He found a post-it note on his desk with COME TO MY OFFICE NOW -T written on it in Sharpie. 

“What’s she want to see me about?” he asked Sakura. 

She was the captain’s protege and knew her schedule inside and out, but even she shrugged. “Sorry, Yamato, I don’t know.”

“You gonna be in trouble?” Sakura’s partner, Naruto, asked. He sounded far too excited about the prospect and Sakura threw a pen at his head to get him to back down.

“He won’t be in trouble,” she hissed at Naruto. “He’s not _you_.”

Yamato put down his bag, shrugged off his wet coat, and peeked into Tsunade’s office. “Captain?”

“Get in here,” she said. 

Someone else was slumped in the only available chair, across from her desk. There was ratty silvery hair above an unravelling sweater collar and Yamato could feel a pit of dread opening in his stomach.

“Yes, Captain?” he said.

“This is Kakashi,” Tsunade said, waving vaguely at the man in front of her. “He’s going to be your new partner.”

“That… that can’t be legal,” Yamato said. “He’s a civilian.”

Tsunade raised her eyebrows. “Oh, so you’ve met? That explains why he asked for you personally.”

Kakashi turned and fixed those mismatched eyes on Yamato for a moment. “Hey, officer.” He was still wearing his flu mask.

“He thinks he’s psychic, Captain,” Yamato said. 

“I know. And it worked.”

“What?”

“You solved a case in record time. That shit could have taken all weekend but you got it done in what, three hours? Thanks to this guy.” She aimed a perfectly manicured fingernail at Kakashi. “So. You let him see what you’re working on and get his insights. And Kotetsu gets to go back to working with—“

“He isn’t psychic,” Yamato said.

Tsunade blinked. “Did I say he was psychic?”

“I am psychic,” Kakashi said.

“No, you aren’t,” Yamato said, so sharply that he started coughing.

“I don’t care!” Tsunade snarled. “Take his ass out in the field with you, get his insights, solve cases. It’s simple. Take another officer if you need one but you’ve been doing this shit long enough that you could do it alone and with your eyes shut. I got this guy fast-tracked on the background checks and he’s got no priors so it’s good enough for me right now. This is a trial run,” she added, turning her glare to Kakashi. “If you don’t get results, you don’t come back.”

“What if Yamato doesn’t like me?” Kakashi said.

Tsunade leaned back in her swivel chair and grinned with all her teeth. “Lucky for you, I don’t care if Yamato likes you or not. I’m in charge of him so I can make him do what I want. I’m more interested in what you can do for my department. So show me what you’ve got.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kakashi said.

“It’s Captain,” she said.

Kakashi cocked his head. “That blonde officer with the pen marks on his face calls you Graptain.” 

Yamato winced.

“Graptain?” Tsunade said.

Yamato rubbed his forehead, trying to avoid eye contact. He coughed again, as pathetically as he could.

It didn’t work. “Oi, Yamato, what the fuck is _Graptain_?” 

“It’s a combination of ‘grandma’ and ‘captain,’ Captain,” Yamato said.

Tsunade’s voice was pure ice when she next spoke. “Could you send Junior Detective Naruto in here on your way out?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Yamato left without checking to see if Kakashi was behind him. He paused by Naruto’s desk and said, “She knows about the nickname, Naruto. Our new resident psychic told her. You have to go talk to her now.”

“Psychic?” Sakura said, picking up on the key issue and ignoring Naruto’s plight. 

“I’m a psychic,” Kakashi said. There was something in his tone that was… nonchalant. Not convincing or trying to convince, but more like he was simply stating a boring fact about himself. A fact he expected everyone to accept. 

“Oh,” Sakura said.

“That’s neat!” Naruto said, leaning into the man’s personal space. “Hey, hey, do me!”

Kakashi’s blank expression tightened into something worried for a moment. “What?”

“Read my mind!” Naruto said.

“Oh. I don’t do ESP.”

“He’s not actually psychic,” Yamato said, just because it seemed that no one else could remember that psychic powers weren’t real. “Naruto, go talk to the Captain or else she’ll come out here and yell at you in front of all of us.”

Naruto made a face. “First Sasuke gets arrested again, now this. Mondays suck.”

“Sasuke’s back?” Sakura said. “What is it this time?”

“Public intoxication,” Naruto said with a shrug. “And he keeps yelling weird stuff about his dealer being attacked by ghosts or something. Standard Sasuke stuff.”

“He’s the worst petty offender,” Sakura said. She kicked Naruto’s chair and pointed at Tsunade’s office, and watched as Naruto dragged his feet all the way there.

“Yamato! New case for you!” Guy called from across the office. He waved a file excitedly. Then he saw who was standing next to Yamato and he all but shrieked in delight. “Kakashi! What are you doing here? What a lovely surprise!”

“Hey, Guy.”

“You know each other?” Yamato asked, bewildered.

“We went through basic training together,” Kakashi said, shrugging. “Ended up in different squads, though.”

“Rei would want me to remind you to call her back,” Guy said, barreling over to stand way too close to Kakashi and, by extension, Yamato. He looked like he wanted to give them both a huge hug and was just barely restraining himself.

“I’ll do that, probably,” Kakashi said. “Here, give my escort here the case before he has a conniption. I’m consulting.”

“Oh?” Guy said. “In what capacity?”

“I’m your new precinct psychic,” Kakashi said.

Yamato watched Guy’s face carefully, wondering if he would turn on his friend for such a terrible lie. Guy continued to smile that beautiful, heartfelt, poker-faced smile of his, though. “How wonderful, Kakashi! I’ll let you get back to work. It’s good to see you. Here, Detective Yamato. It’s rather… grim.”

It was a dead kid case. No one liked dead kid cases. Yamato skimmed the scene report and wished this had been given to someone else. It was a familiar scene. Probably why they’d given it to him, though they should have realized he was a bit too close to a case like this.

“How fucked up,” Kakashi commented, reading over his shoulder. “Does this guy think that humans can survive in test tubes?”

“They can,” Yamato said. “Just not indefinitely, and not without adequate oxygen.”

“Well yeah,” Kakashi snorted. “But still. You’d end up with some seriously wrinkled fingertips.” He tapped one of the printouts clipped to the file. “That’s a weird rebreather they found.”

“It was hooked up to a couple of tanks outside the test tube,” Yamato said. “The killer was testing new gases on subjects he could physically control.”

“Wait, where is that in the report?”

“It’s not in the report. It’s a familiar MO.”

“Familiar what?”

“Modus Operandi. A familiar method of killing people.”

“You’re saying you’ve seen this before?”

Yamato didn’t have to tell this man anything. Kakashi was a hack, a weirdo who’d shown up and in the span of a weekend managed to worm his way into a partnership with Yamato. Everything he said sounded sarcastic. But Yamato coughed, felt something shift in his chest, and said, “Yes. We’ve seen this person before. At least one time.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Did you not get a vision?”

“I prefer to call them ‘psychic pictures’ as of right now. And doubters cramp my style. So, what’s your plan of attack?”

“The scene’s probably still swarming with techs but I’d like to see it myself.”

“I can get a good psychic picture there, good plan.”

Yamato glared. 

Kakashi cocked his head. Behind his flu mask, it was clear that he was smiling. “By the way, officer, could I get your phone number? I’m seeing a six and a nine but the rest of the digits are a mystery, and I feel like we should be able to contact each other. Since we’re partners now.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The crime scene was in a basement that had flooded in the recent rain. There were six inches of standing water, lit by the police halogens run off of private generators. It wasn’t a good idea to turn on the electricity down here, when no one was sure where all the wires were. The techs dissecting the crime scene wore waders. They didn’t give Yamato and Kakashi a pair. Yamato resisted the urge to make another comment about Kakashi predicting the future and bringing appropriate footware, and tried to get a sense of the scene based on what he could see from the stairs.

Apparently unaware of how much sewage was in the flood water, Kakashi slogged straight over to one of the containers. It was a hexagon of glass (getting a circular tube would have been insanely expensive—this madman was a thrifty individual) that was over eight feet tall and four feet wide. A pane had been broken outwards, emptying it of its contents, whatever those had been. 

Yamato knew it had been another body. Possibly even one that had left the scene alive

One of the murder victims who had been discovered at the scene was a 172cm man, roughly 60kg, dark-haired, pale, wearing a bathrobe. He had been strangled by another person who had used their bare hands to do it. It had been done from behind; there were fingernail marks in the dead man’s trachea.

The other victim had been a child. An albino child, somewhere around eight years old and on the thin side. Too much external mutilation to be sure of the gender, but Shizune would let Yamato know once she’d performed an autopsy. Techs had taken the bodies to the coroner’s already. It wasn’t standard procedure—normally they’d let detectives look at a corpse in its final repose before they took it away—but the water was going to cause some pretty nasty bloating if they left the bodies in it, so they’d packed them up. At least they’d taken pictures for the case file. Decent ones too, with good flash. Yamato was already resigning himself to nightmares for the next few days.

Yamato’s phone buzzed in the pocket of his rain jacket. He unzipped the pocket and clicked the message. It was from an unknown number and said, _nudes plz_

Yamato typed, _No. Who is this?_ and crammed the phone back in his pocket. “Hey, Kakashi! Watch out for glass!” He coughed to clear his throat.

“We cleaned it up,” one of the techs said. Her hair was pulled back in two buns to keep it out of the way and she looked like she was the same age as Naruto. Yamato was starting to feel very old when he came to work these days.

“Good job,” he told her. “Anything weird?”

“Apart from everything about this crime scene?” she said. “Well, the chemicals we’ve recovered are a bizarre mix of pharmaceuticals and hormones and psychotropics. We have a ton of journals that read like research notes except where they turn philosophical. I boxed them up and they’re upstairs for you to take back. Um, the kid was a Doe but the guy is probably named—“

“Orochimaru,” Kakashi called from where he was peeking around the back of the test tube.

Yamato leaned over the railing of the stairs, trying to see where Kakashi had gotten that idea. “What?”

“How’d he know that?” the crime scene tech said.

“I’m psychic,” Kakashi said.

The crime tech looked impressed. “He’s right, it’s Orochimaru. Not a common name, so you should be able to find him pretty easily. We’re still going over the scene but you have the initial report, and those journals should keep you two busy for a while.”

“Yes, thank you. My partner seems preoccupied at the moment, perhaps I could leave him with—?”

“Don’t worry, officer, I’m coming,” Kakashi said. The man waded over, his feet making vile squelching noises as he passed through the muck. “Hope you don’t mind mud in your squad car.”

“It’s not mud,” Yamato said. “How did you not know that it isn’t mud?”

Kakashi shook the worst of it off the hem of his sweats and gave Yamato an innocent look with wide, mismatched eyes. “I told you, doubters stifle my gifts. Shall we head on back to the station and get to reading?”

“I need lunch,” Yamato said. 

“I know a place,” Kakashi said. “And they won’t mind if I have shit on my pants.”

Yamato squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying not to picture what kind of restaurant would let in a man with sewage on his clothes. “I’ll get the files. You… try to clean up a bit.”

As Yamato was moving the boxes to his car, his phone buzzed again. The unknown number requesting nudes had replied: _it’s kakashi. nudes?_

Yamato plopped the files in his trunk and responded, _No._

The response was almost immediate. _:( guess i’ll have to use my psycic powerz_

Yamato typed, _You are not psychic._

_am too ;)_

Yamato gritted his teeth. _Get out here, we are leaving._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t the grossest Subway Yamato had ever been in, but since it was a place where Kakashi could get in with suspiciously stained feet and ankles, it wasn’t exactly clean. The man behind the counter smiled at Kakashi and started making a sandwich without comment. When it was his turn, Yamato ordered a stack of vegetables on the parmesan bread and had the man melt provolone over it. 

“You’re vegetarian?” Kakashi said, holding his meatball sub close to his flu mask.

“Yes,” Yamato said. “Whenever possible.”

“Yeah, okay.” Kakashi tugged the mask up enough to take a bite out of his sandwich. “Guess it’s another sign you hate all the fun things about life.” He reached past his large soda, aiming for one of the journals.

Yamato smacked his hand away. “Don’t get food stains on the evidence!”

“I wouldn’t,” Kakashi said around his mouthful of sandwich.

“You were just about to. You’re a civilian, I’m not sure you should be looking at these anyway.” Yamato’s phone pinged with a new email and he opened it to find the results of the background check that he’d asked Sakura to begin.

“Who is it? Is it nudes?” Kakashi asked.

“No,” Yamato said, scrolling through the email. “Detective Haruno sent me all of the information we could find on Orochimaru. He doesn’t have a record. Orphan, never—“

“He moved around foster homes a lot,” Kakashi said. “No one wanted a kid that weird as a part of their forever home. And then he turned eighteen and he managed to work his way into a chemistry lab.”

“…Yes.” Yamato tried not to look too pissed off about the man’s interjection, which had been completely correct even if it wasn’t very specific. Scrolling through the body of the email, Yamato added, “He was arrested on possession for his eighteenth birthday but he wasn’t charged. Probably an officer being lenient about it for a first offense and on a kid’s birthday. He got a scholarship to a prestigious medical university. He bounced around various departments, combining degrees in biology and physics. He never left academia. He has several Ph.Ds. After he turned thirty-eight, he disappeared off the grid. He’s fifty-two now, or he was. The building where we found him is leased to someone going by Kabuto.”

Kakashi tucked his fingers behind his mask to suck off excess spaghetti sauce with a thoughtful air. “Well, this all looks pretty suspicious for the dead guy.”

“Yes.”

“So what was it like when you saw the first fucked-up test tubes? Never caught the guy, right?”

Yamato couldn’t stop himself from twitching. 

“Well, that was interesting,” Kakashi said after a moment. “My vision—“

“Shut up.” Yamato started piling the journals back into their boxes. The task was made more difficult by the fact that he was shaking. He kept his eyes open; if he closed them, he knew he would remember the last batch of test tubes they had found, back when he was a rookie and he thought every sadist got their own task force hell-bent on hunting them down. He hadn’t considered the fact that there was no budget for that many task forces, and there was no budget for finding someone who killed the kids who lived on the fringes and in the cracks of the world.

The last batch of test tubes Yamato had seen had not been empty.

A hand closed over his wrist. Yamato focused on the human contact, even if it came from someone who was pretending to be psychic and _pretending so annoyingly well_. Being touched helped him remember he was in the here and now. He breathed as slowly and evenly as he could. 

The sound of his own breath expanded in his ears, clearing them out in time for him to hear Kakashi say, “—working, so I guess this is okay. Everyone’s different about panic attacks. I’m glad this is doing something for you. I didn’t know talking about that past case would fuck you up so bad, sorry.”

“ ’s fine,” Yamato managed. He coughed to clear his throat, then kept coughing. His chest rattled with phlegm and he hacked up something into the back of his throat. He shook off Kakashi’s hand to grab a napkin and he quickly spat the lump of mucus into the paper.

“That’s gross,” Kakashi said.

“You were literally wading in shit half an hour ago,” Yamato said.

“Yeah, so I know what gross is. I have experienced gross and I can tell you that what you just did was really, really gross.”

Yamato rubbed his forehead. “I’m going home. I am sick and I can read these at my apartment. Do you need me to drop you off somewhere?”

“Nah, I live around here. Hey, I can take a box of these journals if you want.”

“No.”

“It’s no trouble, I want to help you.”

“No. It’s illegal for a civilian to have access to evidence in ongoing cases.”

“I’m consulting, though. And your chief basically said I was fine.”

Yamato looked at Kakashi carefully. The man looked very earnest, from what Yamato could see around the mask. “Fine. One box.”

“Great.”

“You call me if you have any ideas, all right? Or, wait, text me, I might try to sleep this cold off.”

“Whatever you say, officer.”

“It’s detective,” Yamato said. 

“What?”

“You’ve been calling me ‘officer’ this whole time but I’m a detective.”

“I know. Detective Yamato.”

Yamato blinked. “So you’ve been messing with me.”

“Yep.”

“…To what purpose?”

Kakashi shrugged. “It’s how I flirt.”

Yamato looked down at his untouched sandwich and decided he was done for the day. It was one in the afternoon and he was not equipped to deal with a fake psychic hitting on him after a serial killer had resurfaced. Yamato folded the sandwich up in its paper and said, “I’m going home. I’ll meet you at the precinct tomorrow morning at eight in the morning, got it?”

Kakashi sounded incredibly amused as he said, “I got it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yamato woke up to his phone buzzing, and winced to hear the rain still pattering against his window. Groggy with interrupted sleep, he checked the time on his phone: 22:02. He clicked into his text messages and stared blankly at the new text from Kakashi that read, _what’s up_

 _I have been sleeping off my cold but now I feel worse._ Yamato typed out slowly. He closed his eyes for a moment. 

His phone buzzed in his hand and woke him up again. Kakashi had sent, _it’s because u didnt send nudes_

 _That is not how biology works_ ,Yamato replied.

As his outgoing text sent, another text from Kakashi appeared: _i got a vison where do u live_

Yamato gave up and called him. “Kakashi?”

“Yep. Where are you?”

“I’m home. You can tell me whatever… thing you need to tell me over the phone.”

“No, you have to come and see.”

“What?”

Kakashi’s voice was faint through the cotton wool of Yamato’s congestion. Yamato plugged his free ear with his finger and tried to focus as the man said, “I have this strong, uh, feeling that the guy you’re looking for is an albino, and also that the old guy being murdered was a completely justified homicide.”

Yamato stifled a yawn. “And you have evidence for this ‘feeling’ of yours that you want to show me?”

There was a telling pause before Kakashi said, “Yes.”

“I’m sick,” Yamato said. “I am an ill man and you want me to leave my apartment and come see whatever it is you think will crack this case. Is this correct?”

There was no pause this time. “Yes.”

Yamato shuffled deeper under his blankets and took a breath, relishing the warmth for a last, brief second. “All right. Where are you?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kakashi had gone back to the crime scene alone and gotten himself detained. He wasn’t arrested, because he had been very clear that he was with a detective named Yamato and the crime scene tech with the buns had remembered him, but they didn’t trust him.

“He says he’s a psychic,” said the officer guarding the door.

“Yes,” Yamato said. “He says that. May I see him?”

Kakashi beamed behind his flu mask when Yamato slid into the back of the police car with him. “Officer! You made it!”

“What do you have to tell me?” Yamato said, and sniffed.

“You sound so shitty.”

“I’m aware. Could you clarify for me why I’m here?” Yamato dug in his pockets for his packet of tissues.

“Okay,” Kakashi said, “so I was reading through that box you lent me when I had a psychometric experience—”

Yamato found a tissue. “I don’t care how you try to justify your weird hunches to me. Just tell me what your theory is.” He blew his nose and dabbed it gently, then neatly dropped the used tissue outside the car door where the rain would hopefully dissolve it. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was how tissues worked. The cold and rain on top of his headcold were making it difficult to focus. It would be ideal if there was some way to turn on the car’s heat during this discussion, but it wasn’t Yamato’s car. He didn’t have keys for it.

Yamato realized he’d gotten distracted, and he blinked his way back into focus. 

Kakashi was speaking. “…notes but they’re really creepy, obviously. He was trying to find a way to preserve a person past the point of physical deterioration due to aging. He got sidetracked on the body for a while, then went on to some things about the mind. It was just the bare bones, though, since these notes were a few years old. He talked about test subjects, though, and I think they’re the kids. That kid in the basement? Definitely his handiwork. I— My vision showed another, previous test subject who he’d been keeping in a test tube. The subject got loose and strangled him. The dead kids are all Orochimaru’s fault, and whoever killed him was going to end up another victim but managed to escape.”

Yamato was nodding in spite of himself. “This sounds feasible. Why did you come back here, though?”

“I wanted to check the crime scene again, now that I know a bit more about what Orochimaru was trying to do. And we need to find you some evidence, I guess, because you don’t trust psychic visions.”

“I don’t,” Yamato agreed. He peered out into the rain. “It’s kind of late to be here, though.”

“Yeah, it would be pretty spooky. I’m kind of glad Officer Tendernudge over there stopped me.”

“Officer what?” Yamato asked, but then something caught his eye. A pale smear. He squinted through the waterstained windows. Whoever was out there was lingering by the police barricade but staying back from the streetlights, which was suspicious. The last time this had happened, he’d ended up with a psychic as a partner.

“Who’s that?” Kakashi said, his voice suddenly very close to Yamato’s ear.

“I don’t know.”

“I have a feeling about him.”

“Hm?”

There was a sudden gust of cold air, the smell of water, and an intensified sound of rain. Yamato glanced over to see that Kakashi was gone.

“Oh,” Yamato said. He pushed his way out into the rain as well, and set off at a shambling run after the self-proclaimed psychic. He was feeling distinctly dizzy. Perhaps he was getting a fever now instead of just a cold.

Kakashi was fast, but Yamato was also blaming his own debilitated state for why it took him almost five minutes to catch up to Kakashi. He’d made it three blocks before stopping, and Yamato stumbled up to find him peering out into the sheets of rain. 

“Who was it?” Yamato asked, and then had to cough for a long time. Kakashi glanced over and put a hand on his shoulder, tilting him forward. The changed position helped dislodge some lung gunk, thankfully. Yamato repeated his question: “Who was that?”

“It was the guy in the test tube. The one who broke out to kill Orochimaru. He was an albino, just like that kid you recovered at the scene. A teen, though, not a child.”

“But we still have no evidence. And our one potential eyewitness, who we can’t actually confirm as an eyewitness, got away.” Yamato stopped to wheeze again before adding, “Because I’m severely unwell.”

“You are,” Kakashi said. “Look, I’m… I’m sorry I dragged you out in this. Can I drive you home?”

“I drove myself,” Yamato said.

“Yeah, I mean I’d drive your car for you. I don’t have a car.”

Yamato did feel more than a little dizzy. Driving while impaired was a threat to all other drivers on the road. He nodded. “All right.”

Kakashi drove in silence, turning when Yamato remembered to tell him where to go. They made it with only three backtracking moments; Yamato had slipped into a doze before remembering he needed to tell Kakashi where to go. Kakashi actually helped him out of the car and up the five flights of stairs to his apartment.

“You want tea?” Yamato said around a yawn. He expected the man to refuse but Kakashi was giving him a serious look over his blue flu mask.

“Yes, actually,” Kakashi said. “I need to… Never mind. In a minute.”

“What?”

“Tea would be great, thanks.”

Yamato concentrated on filling up the kettle. He popped two Ibuprofen to keep the fever in check and wandered out to find that Kakashi sprawled on his couch, taking up all the available space. He was scanning Yamato’s copy of the local newspaper but he looked up when Yamato entered. “Hey, I gotta tell you something.”

“Hm?”

“The kid? From the crime scene?”

“Yes?”

“I caught up to him.”

Yamato blinked slowly. “What?”

“He didn’t get away from me. I caught him and I asked him why he did it, how he did it, if he was going to do it again—“

“It doesn’t matter if he does it again,” Yamato said. “It’s illegal to kill people. No matter what they did.”

“I don’t know if you’d say that if you heard what this kid went through,” Kakashi said. His tone was careful, a man probing for safe footing.

“It doesn’t matter,” Yamato said firmly.

“I think it does.”

“You aren’t an officer of the law, you’re a civilian who wants attention.”

“I want to _help_ , you uptight asshole.”

Yamato winced. “Bad image. And yes, if following the law means that—“

“Are you making an anal sex joke?”

“No. You were.”

Kakashi sounded impressed. “But you got it. You went with it. You do have a sense of humor. Damn.”

Yamato shook his head slowly, then had to grab the wall to stop feeling the motion. “What kind of tea do you want?”

“I don’t care. I just wanted to tell you I talked to the kid. He said he doesn’t have a reason to kill anyone after Orochimaru. He’s leaving town. He just wanted to get out of there, and I believe he’s not really a threat. He’s an abused kid.”

“Then he will need help,” Yamato said. “The state can provide this, in exchange for his testimony.”

“Seriously? You’re going to trust the system? After what it did to that ‘scientific method’ wacko?”

“Orochimaru, yes,” Yamato said. “I do trust the system. I’m part of it, after all.”

Those different-colored eyes were settled coldly, inescapably, on Yamato. “You never have doubts?”

Yamato could have said he had never doubted his actions in the line of duty. He didn’t have to justify himself to this man. But he found himself thinking about every grey-area case he’d ever worked, the crying families, the dragging court cases, the money…

“Everyone doubts,” Kakashi said softly. “I think you can still do your job. Just… be a bit more critical about what you do.”

“I suppose,” Yamato replied. His voice was almost a whisper. There was a reverence to this moment: Kakashi sprawled on his couch, the edge of his sweatshirt riding up and dragging his battered windbreaker with it; Yamato in the doorway to the kitchen, hand on the wall to keep the world steady; the dull rattle of the tea kettle getting hotter and hotter. 

“What’s going to happen now?” Kakashi asked.

“I’ll tell them your hunches. Try to find some evidence . If I check Orochimaru’s later journals we may get an idea of the man’s name—the murderer’s name.”

“Yeah?” Kakashi was sitting up.

“Yes.”

“And that’s standard operating procedure?”

“…yes. Somewhat.”

Kakashi propped his chin on his hand. “And you and me?”

“What?”

“Can we keep working together?” Kakashi asked.

Yamato leaned his head against the cool wall and sighed. “Yes.”

“So I’m breaking through that tough cop exterior?”

Yamato smiled. “You’re psychic. You figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yamato is unwell and cold during this fic because I wrote it when I was unwell and cold. October/November has not been kind to me. My friend's original prompt read like a _Psych/Brooklyn 99_ episode but I guess I made it way too dark for that, sorry. I haven't played the video game that inspired the title but I know enough about it to get the SHAWN joke and that's all I needed for this.
> 
> I! Don’t think any of this is legal! Like, any of the things Yamato does as a cop detective! Obviously the child mutilations/murders are illegal, I think that’s pretty clear, but partnering with a psychic and taking evidence home for your sick day? Utter bullshit.
> 
> …It’s maybe unclear, but Suigetsu is the one who definitely murdered Orochimaru in this ‘verse. Because I love Suigetsu and he would have totally done it and I would have cheered him on.
> 
> This fic could probably have gone on for a novel's worth of stuff but I can't do that to myself, I have Sai Week to prepare for.
> 
> Citing my sources: my friend found a tumblr called straightwhiteboytexts or something like that and realized that they look like Kakashi texts and that's where I got the thing about 'you are ill because you didn't send nudes/that's not how biology works.'


	22. Breaking Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone else see that 1979 movie about bike racing or was it just me and my family?
> 
> Written in 20 minutes because goddammit, my anime friend sends me dialogue that's just too funny not to share. All I add is some mild context.

Kakashi was facing a very serious decision. He had been training for this bike race for months. He had bought these bike shorts special. Rin was waiting for him at the finish line with a ‘I win you lose, you owe me $400 and 2 embarrassing childhood photographs’ sign because she thought he wasn’t going to finish this in first place. Everything was pointing him towards passing the frontrunner, who was only a bike-length away. The peloton was way behind and it was just the two of them gasping their way down an empty mountain road. 

On the other hand, the guy ahead of him—whose snug little biking shirt declared his name to be YAMATO—had a fantastic ass.

“Damn,” Kakashi managed to whisper to himself. He could hear the guy open-mouthed panting and it was making his already uncomfortable bike seat that much more uncomfortable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kakashi put on a burst of speed for the last half-mile and shocked everyone by blasting past the man who had been the front-runner for the entire race. 

Rin tore her sign down the middle. “I’m not hugging you. No, you’re so sweaty, get away—! Goddammit, Kakashi.”

Kakashi rubbed his cheek against the top of her head and sighed. “I could have won ages ago but let me tell you, it was worth it.” He let go of her to turn and watch Yamato slide off his bike. The man popped his helmet off, hair sticking up in spikes matted with sweat. He was still gasping for breath—he’d done his best to keep the lead but Kakashi wasn’t going to give Rin access to his embarrassing childhood photos. 

As Kakashi watched, Yamato wriggled his way out of his spandex shirt and patted at the sweat on the back of his neck.

“I want one for my birthday,” Kakashi said. He leaned against Rin. “Get me one, please. I’ll be your best friend.”

“I already am your best friend.” She gave Yamato a critical up-down. “Huh. Well, he’s used to riding on uncomfortable bike seats so your awful, bony ass wouldn’t deter him.”

“This is why you’re my wing person. Go say that to him.”

Rin looked up. “What, seriously?”

“Yeah. While he’s distracted, I’ll stick this in the back of his shorts.” Kakashi held up his crumpled identification number card, which had his phone number scrawled across it.

“He won’t see it if it’s crammed down the back of his shorts,” Rin pointed out.

“I’ll be staking my claim. That counts for something.”

“Okay, are you this thirsty because of the adrenaline of almost losing the race? Or is his ass really that good?”

Kakashi gestured wordlessly as Yamato bent over to unlace his biking shoes.

Rin cocked her head to the side. “Okay, point taken, that’s a wonderful ass. Come on, I’ll shove you into him so you can cop a feel and get to know him.”

“You truly are my best friend.”

“I know.”


	23. Cashless Cab

“Showtime,” Rin said as their cab pulled up. She waddled towards the car, moving carefully so that the lump of Kakashi’s dirty clothes she’d shoved under her baggy T-shirt wouldn’t shift and give the game away. 

Too late to catch her bus (because Kakashi kept turning her alarm off), too poor to afford a cab fare, and desperate, it was their first time working this con. Kakashi was responsible for a significant portion of her problems and so she’d forced him to participate. He needed to do laundry anyway.

“Come on, sweetie,” she said to him.

“Yes, dear,” Kakashi sighed as he helped her into the taxi.

“Where can I take you?” the cab driver asked.

“Hospital,” Kakashi said. Rin pinched him and he added, “She’s having a baby. Right now.”

The cab driver did a double-take in the rearview mirror. “What?”

“Faster would be better,” Rin said, barely-suppressed urgency clear in her voice. “I won’t leak on your seats but that’s because my water already broke.”

“Holy shit,” the cab driver said. “I mean, I’m sorry for swearing, but—“

“Drive,” Rin snarled. She sounded like she was channelling her fear of being late for work again into this stunning performance of a woman in labor. “We have to get to National Jewish Health now.”

“How dilated do you think you are, dear?” Kakashi asked, making conversation as the driver pulled away from the curb.

“Four inches at least, sugarpop.”

“You can feel it?” Kakashi gave her crotch a wide-eyed stare. Rin glared at him.

“I don’t know what that means, oh my god, should I drive faster?” the driver said. He seemed to be bouncing in his seat while also trying to obey traffic laws.

“Wait,” Rin said, “you don’t know what that means?”

“It’s seems like it would be pretty obvious to me, from context,” Kakashi said. “Do you not know how vaginas work?”

“No I do not!” The man was taking in deep, panicked breaths.

Kakashi and Rin exchanged amazed glances. “How?” Kakashi asked.

“I’m gay! Please don’t get blood and baby gunk on my seats please! Birth is a miracle of life but oh god,” the driver said.

“Gay?” Kakashi said. “Hm. Filing that away for future reference. Top or bottom?”

Rin leaned in and muttered in Kakashi’s ear, “Looks like a top to me.”

“What does this have to do with giving birth?” the driver wailed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kakashi said. He twisted to catch a glimpse of the man’s license. “Yamato, huh? Nice name.”

“Almost there,” Rin said.

“Yes,” their driver sighed as he squealed to a stop in front of National Jewish Health. “Good luck, sir and ma’am. The ride’s on me. Congratulations.”

“Oh, hey, before we go,” Kakashi said as he popped open his door, “could I get your number?”

The driver, Yamato, blinked at him. 

“Catch,” Rin called, and Kakashi fielded the orb of his clothes. Rin winked and disappeared into the hospital.

“But… birth?” Yamato said. “Your wife is giving birth?”

“Nah, sorry, she was just late for work,” Kakashi said. “And she’s just a friend. And our kid is this laundry.” He held up the clothes as proof. “We can’t pay you, that’s why we did this.”

Yamato slowly turned to stare emptily through the windshield, then rested his forehead on the steering wheel. 

Kakashi peeked his head back into the cab. “You okay?”

“I… I need a minute.”

“Hey, uh. You wanna take a break for coffee? My treat, as long as it’s under five bucks—I need to make change for the laundromat.”

Yamato sighed for a long time, then said, “All right, just let me… I need to park.”

Kakashi jogged around the side of the taxi and slid into the front passengers’ seat. “The laundromat’s just down the street. And there’s a Starbucks a little further, too. Keep going, I’ll tell you where to stop.”

Kakashi ended up breaking a ten instead of a five because of exorbitant beverage prices. “What’s wrong with Folger’s?” he complained as he flicked through his change. He’d gotten sufficient quarters but at what cost?

Yamato shrugged and stared into his latte. 

“We can walk from here,” Kakashi said. His wad of clothes stuffed up under his arm, he used his free hand to grab on to Yamato’s wrist and drag him down the street. Yamato allowed himself to be towed to Best Cleaners and deposited in one of the plastic chairs against the wall.

“I’m trying to come up with a joke,” Kakashi said, pointing at the large sign hanging over a series of washers and declaring them to be suited for a Double Load. “I just can’t make it work, though. You have any ideas? Anything about loads?”

Yamato sipped his latte.

“Sorry we can’t pay your fare,” Kakashi said after a moment. “She’s just an intern and I’m on veterans’ disability, so we’re both pretty fucked. Seriously, though, sorry.”

“Are you going to sort that?”

“What?”

Yamato waved at the heap of clothes. “Sort that. Into darks and lights at least. I don’t see any colors. You don’t sort?”

“Uhhh no?”

“You should.”

Kakashi cocked his head. “Why?”

“Your whites will get murky.”

“Nah. Too late. It’s darks and used-to-be-whites at this point.”

Yamato squinted closer at the clothes. “Are… What are those stains?”

“Hm?” Kakashi kicked a few shirts away and tried to nudge the whole mess open like a flower. “Which ones?”

“Oh god. Um. That.” Yamato pointed to a particular patch.

“Why don’t you guess?” Kakashi suggested.

“Um. Yogurt?”

“That’s clearly semen.”

Yamato’s eyes widened fractionally but Kakashi just smiled at him. Yamato pointed to another stain and guessed, “Chocolate?”

“I believe the new term for it is santorum and I can’t be sure if it’s from me or someone else. Next.”

“Blood?”

“Strawberry jam. Why would I have blood on my clothes? What do you think I am, an animal? Next.”

“Catsup?”

“Blood.”

Yamato choked on a laugh and hid his smile in the rim of his coffee cup. 

Grinning, Kakashi said, “Hey, wanna try guessing if the stains’ll come out in the wash or not?”

“Um. Sure.”

“What a great first date.”

Yamato shot Kakashi a sharp look, then said, “Indeed. It certainly is memorable.”

Kakashi beamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 90% of my extended family lives in Denver, Colorado and I pass National Jewish Health every time I visit so hey, it’s going in this fic. They don’t do births (it’s a research hospital) but Rin didn’t care about the cover story in the face of getting to work on time. There also really is a laundromat and a Starbucks down the street from National Jewish. Shoutout to the Mile High City. 
> 
> …actually, by all rights Yamato should be an Uber driver, but I’m old.
> 
> Just assume santorum is horrible if you don’t know what it is. Please don’t google it.


End file.
